Yankees Not Taking Part in MLB/Game of Thrones Team-Up?

Major League Baseball announced Wednesday a partnership with HBO to cross-promote with it’s hit show, Game of Thrones. If it were up to me, the New York Yankees should go on embracing their identity as the Evil Empire by adding a new one:

Yankees = House Lannister

There’s a line from Game of Thrones from a character talking about Tywin Lannister, the late head of House Lannister and Hand of the King to his grandson Joffrey at the time. To paraphrase, this character (I don’t remember who or when) says Tywin is ruling the Seven Kingdoms “by sheer will.”

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Like the Lions of Casterly Rock, the Yankees are rich – but are working through money problems. They have a track record of winning – just not so much lately. They also share a certain sense of superiority, which results in them being disliked by most.

And, in a move Queen Cersei would approve of, the team isn’t even “officially” on board with the Thrones/MLB cross-promotion. Deadline reported “at least 19” teams will participate and the Yankees were unsurprisingly not among them. However, it’s entirely possible they – and ten other teams – are just taking a wait-and-see approach.

Unlike the Lannisters, the Yankees are on the path back to prominence. Sure, Cersei may have taken the Iron Throne by force, but she has enemies all around and hardly the army to hold them off. The Bronx Bombers, on the other hand, are shedding dead money and fostering a deep class of young warriors.

MLB already has a partnership in place with Disney to cross-promote Marvel and Star Wars to appeal to younger fans. The Thrones deal is very much in that same vein, only on a “much larger scale,”  MLB Executive Vice President of Business Noah Garden told Deadline.

I have no idea what that means, but I cannot wait. Regardless if any teams choose not to get involved, or limit their involvement, MLB will be airing a “tremendous amount of tie-ins” to HBO’s hit show.

MLB.com noted there would be “theme nights coming to ballparks around the league – featuring commemorative collectibles, ticket packages, giveaways, special co-branded merchandise, and a lot more.”

Next: You Need to Get Out and See this Yankees Team this Spring

For those of you who clicked here hoping for even the smallest nugget of info from Westeros, Deadline asked Garden about season seven, and he, like Jon Snow, knows nothing.