QUEENS KNIGHTS
We Are Left Field
WHAT IS IT: The Queens Knights is a brand new fan-group for the New York Mets, specifically targeted towards the Gen Z demographic of Mets fans. Named in honor of 1986 World Series MVP Ray Knight, the Queens Knights’ vision is to bring back the same passionate, fiery and win-at-all costs energy that made opposing teams so intimidated of the Mets throughout the successful parts of their history, particularly at Shea Stadium. Members of the Queens Knights will be encouraged to be loud, passionate and united as the aim will be to boost the energy up at Citi Field. With our efforts, our mission is to help Citi Field establish its own unique and even intimidating identity, something the Mets franchise has been lacking since Shea Stadium’s final season in 2008.
HOW IT’LL BE DONE: The process behind making the Queens Knights a viral success story will be very elaborate and organized. First and foremost, the Queens Knights will be working with the Mets on ticket deals to get seats reserved for Queens Knights outings, where all members will be together and cheering in unison. From there, there will be significant time invested into the marketing production of the operation — such as merchandise to be worn at group outings, a recognizable logo that represents the group, professional graphics and a website, and elaborate video tutorials on specific chants (Wolf of Wallstreet chant) for the group. Over the MLB lockout and remainder of the off-season, the focus will be on securing seats for the outings, developing a website, getting an eye catching logo, coming up with unique chants, and marketing the group through social media (@NYM_News and @QueensKnights).
WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT: There are already established fangroups in sports and even MLB, but there’s one thing the Queens Knights will have that others don’t: YOUTH. While we will encourage all ages to eventually join the Queen Knights, this is ultimately a group that will be created by Gen Z, for Gen Z. MLB has been struggling with getting younger fans passionate about baseball in recent years, which is exactly why we want to get out there and focus our operation on attracting this specific demographic. There is great potential in building a viral fan group through social media, as there’s a large sector of the fanbase in the 16-28 age range who are extremely active and engaged on Mets social media but don’t have an avenue in real life to express that passion with like-minded peers. Often, successful fan-groups take years to develop but between the brains, experience, social media followings and strategy behind this operation, if successful, we believe this is something that can take over right away throughout the 2022 season.
MEDIA STRATEGY: With The7Line already well established within the Mets organization and fanbase, a strategic plan to attract media attention will be needed in order to gain traction and respect for the group right away. This will initially be done by creating a buzz for the group on social media through NYM_News, the largest Mets fanpage on Instagram with over 77,000 rabid Mets fans. Once that’s done and the Queens Knights official Instagram has its own engaged community, the attention will be turned towards building up hype through New York media. The leaders of the group will be making regular appearances on WFAN’s Roberts & Carton show, who have offered advice and encouragement to the group in the past. From there, attention will be turned towards bringing in notable and relevant people to attend group outings, such as former players, recognizable figures in NYC culture, and even the Cohen family. The Queens Knights hope is o get to a point where it’s such a must-see experience, they’re regularly bringing in noteworthy figures to join group outings and attract even more people to the movement.
LONG-TERM VISION: Ultimately, we hope to transcend this fanbase. With the Queens Knights, we aim to create a fiery vision that not only inspires this “sleeping giant” fanbase, but also the players on the field. People need to understand that in this new Steve Cohen era, the Mets are eager to take the league by storm and we won’t be intimidated by anybody. Much like the mentality of the 1986 Mets, we need to start acting like we’re the best along with having a chip on our shoulder. As we’ve seen throughout the franchise’s history, New York City will rally around a team that’s able to successfully represent the passion and intensity that makes the Big Apple unlike any other city in the world. Eventually, we want to take over opposing stadiums when the Mets come to town and start making this a national movement. We want people to not only be excited to attend games with us, but proud to represent Queens and the Mets alike. So much to the point where ultimately, we will be traveling all across the 30 stadiums in MLB to solidify this movement and take the league over by storm.
This has been long overdue… let’s takeover.