Purple Reign: Mets Talisman Grimace Is More than a Gimmick

The Mets have gone purple. Grimace—the McDonald’s cuddly blob—is now the team’s semi-official mascot after the character threw out the first pitch June 12, which kicked off a winning streak. Grimace and the Mets have ridden the magic to an improbable spot in the National League Championship Series.

Since that now-iconic first pitch, McDonald’s has earned more than $24.7 million in free media across TV, radio, digital news, newsprint, and social media, according to Apex Marketing, which calculated the figure for Front Office Sports. McDonald’s is well known for offering value—and it also got its own deal on this massive visibility boost, compared to its minimal investment.

Michael Neuman, co-head of Playfly Sports Consulting and an adjunct professor of sports business at Columbia University, estimates McDonald’s—through its local New York–area franchisee owners—pays less than seven figures annually for the sponsorship of the Mets. Included in that would likely be perks such as a first pitch.

When the Mets and their fans adopted Grimace as a good luck talisman, Matt Powell says McDonald’s corporate and its agency stepped in to help coordinate when to pull levers and when to let fans engage organically with the exploding phenomenon. “There’s this kind of push and pull between the fans and us kind of continuing to put him in key spots to get exposure,” says Powell, president of Moroch, the marketing agency for New York–area McDonald’s franchisees. “It’s a lot of hands in the mix trying to determine how best to utilize this.” Even he’s surprised not only how rabid the Grimace embrace has been, but also how long it’s endured.

The Mets and McDonald’s have likely shared certain costs of extra activations, Powell says, such as the Times Square billboard of a Mets hat–clad Grimace towering over Midtown, and the Grimace-wrapped subway cars during the NLDS against the Phillies. The team also created a purple Grimace seat at CitiField that’s become a selfie destination. (Costs such as these would be in addition to the typical annual sponsorship fee.)

But for the money McDonald’s has invested, Powell and Neuman—who handled the McDonald’s sports marketing account for an agency in the late 1990s—both say the fans are the biggest drivers of the Grimace mania. A deli in Queens, for example, now makes sandwiches on purple bread during Mets home playoff game days.

The Mets aren’t necessarily full-on trailblazers adopting a fast food mascot as both a highly visible presence and good luck charm. In 2015 and 2018, the Burger King mascot appeared in the box of trainer Bob Baffert at the Belmont Stakes as his horses raced, successfully, for the Triple Crown. Newsweek reported Burger King paid $200,000 for the second appearance alone. “The second time it happened, Baffert reached out to us and said, ‘Hey, I need, I need my good luck charm, the Burger King, with me in the box before the race,’” Neuman, who handled the appearance, tells FOS.

But without viral success, those promotions aren’t in the ballpark of Grimace and the Mets’ feat—and certainly did not have staying power.

Powell of Moroch says it’s tough to calculate whether McDonald’s sales are picking up amid this purple wave, especially because the chain’s $5 value meals have goosed profits nationally. “It would be hard to associate it, but I think brand awareness and sentiment, those are things that are probably being tracked [by McDonald’s],” he said. (Neither the McDonald’s corporate media team nor the Mets returned outreach for questions.)

For the Mets, this has been the season of viral kitsch.

Besides Grimace, the players also have taken to displaying the abbreviation OMG, which is the name of second baseman’s Jose Iglesias’s hit song; and Pete Alonso’s playoff pumpkin, which has traveled with him since they eliminated the Brewers, has become the latest symbol. The Mets are still the underdog to make the World Series, but a safe bet would almost certainly be on a continued swath of Grimace costumes in the stands at CitiField.