Over the past few days, news has surfaced of a new project that former teammates, Justin Turner and Adrian Gonzalez, have been working hard on a project that the two are close to launching for the public.
While both are still around the league and looking to continue their careers has ballplayers, the two have been hard at work constructing an application called Pop Fly to help baseball players become more marketable, closer to the fans, and grow their own personal brands.
The idea started to gain some ground at a Major League Baseball Player Association meeting, where Gonzalez pitched the idea of Pop Fly to the association. The MLB knowingly lags behind other high-level American sports leagues like the NBA and the NFL with marketing their star players, so Gonzalez and Turner look to allow players to market themselves with Pop Fly.
Gonzalez spoke about Pop Fly with the Los Angeles Times recently, and spoke about the MLB’s biggest star, Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, who chooses not to market himself to the levels of other players of his caliber across sports. The app will “let Trout be Trout,” told Gonzalez. “He can present himself however he wants to present himself,” with Pop Fly, which is free for fans and players.
Gonzalez will look to gain traction with other players during Spring Training this year, hoping to gain licensing from the Player’s Association for all players to market themselves through Pop Fly. A player who has already signed on to work with Adrian Gonzalez on the project is his former ‘home run selfie’ partner, Justin Turner.
Tony Clark, the executive director of the MLBPA, isn’t a stranger to this idea. The Association has tried to launch something like Pop Fly before; an app called Infield Chatter. Clark has spoken very highly of Pop Fly’s mission, and stated to reporters, “the Player’s Association naturally supports any initiatives to achieve that, [ways to connect players to their fans], but especially when they’re player-driven…”
Arrick Joel has covered the Dodgers since 2017, and for Dodgers-LowDown since 2018. Follow @ArrickJoel and @DodgersLowDown on Twitter for more.