While I like to blog about book reviews, to be honest I read a lot of books out of the political and historical sections of the bookstore….which have zero interest to most readers of the “Gameops” blog.  So I was stopped dead in my tracks while reading a book about the Supreme Court Justices when I read this:

“At that moment, the door to the dining room swung open and a giant beast with green fur, purple eyelashes, and a Philadelphia Phillies jersey burst into the room. The Phillie Phanatic lumbered over to Alito, gave him a prolonged embrace, and then left the room, leaving raucous laughter in it’s wake.” (page 323-4)

Once I got past my shock over the inclusion of the Phanatic’s appearance, I thought this is a good example of the wide range of appearance any mascot makes. Talk to any mascot and you will doubtless hear stories about oddball appearances to random celebrity run-ins. These can be a great source of content for your mascot’s web page, blog or myspace page. It’s a way to connect with your teams fan base that is sometimes wide-ranging and hard to reach.

It’s also a way to tell fans about what your mascot does outside of the friendly confines of your arena or stadium. Show your fans your mascot is out doing appearances for kid’s birthdays, mall opening, or parades and you can be certain you will start getting more calls about doing birthday parties, grand openings and parades.  For performers and teams who count on appearances for revenue generation this can be a real boost.

Perhaps someday the Supreme Court will call you and request a mascot appearance including a prolonged embrace with another justice….if you are lucky. And if they do, let me know so I can blog about it.

As of late 2016 there is more jurisprudence mascot news from Philly:

my friend is at jury duty in philly and this is happening… pic.twitter.com/ytZ8GvJVdb

— marisa kabas (@MarisaKabas) October 17, 2016

–Cudo