Marketing a MLB Franchise; Start with the Customer

There was an article posted by Craig Calcaterra on Hardball Talk yesterday, about how the Royals are going to market themselves, now that they've traded Zack Greinke. Greinke was the team's biggest star and it's most obvious drawing card; how will his absence impact the team's marketing activities, and subsequently, it's revenue?

When Kansas City team spokeman Tom Cooke was presented with this question, here was his response:

"One of the things we constantly run into as a professional ball club — and other sports run into this as well — is, how do you use players in marketing the organization and avoid using them to your peril because they move? You don’t know what’s going to happen from year to year or even month to month. At the same time, you need to figure out a way to balance getting people excited about the product on the field with the product at the ball park.”

OK, I'm not sure if the Royals are handling this the right way, because I don't really know the details of their market, or their customers. But I do know that this type of situation is one where  current MLB management teams have a huge advantage over their predecessors from prior decades, due to the focus they've placed on bringing in and developing strong business personnell, as opposed to just player personell.

A lot of people reading this will ask a very simple question: "Why do MLB teams need strong business people? That's not going to help them on the field." The answer is simple, too - because strong business people (marketing executives, business & product managers, product marketing managers, etc...) are the ones that design and execute the kind of initiatives which help ensure that when you do have to trade away your best player for a case of beer nuts and a $2 waffle iron, your fan base doesn't walk out the door behind them. Because if you have positioned your franchise (aka, your product) incorrectly with your fans, if you've ignored their needs and taken away the reasons that they're coming to the ballpark, watching your games on TV, and buying your merchandise... they will walk. And they will take their money with them, and spend it on something else. This isn't the 1950's, and baseball isn't the only game in town. There are way too many alternatives out there; the competition isn't just other MLB franchises, anymore. Teams are competing, in a sense, with every other entertainment option that might high-jack dollars from their bottom line, like other pro and college sports, bars, clubs, movies, coffee shops, online porn, etc...

The thing is, MOST major league teams do a pretty terrible job of this sort of thing, and get by simply because high-level professional sports are such a draw in our country. Organizations tend to be extremely disconnected from their fan base; they don't understand the fans' wants and needs, or what drives their behaviors. They don't know how often individuals attend games or watch them on TV, how much they spend, how they want to be communciated with, or what's going to make their park experience better. Their non-baseball projects, events, promotions and marketing programs aren't based on real data and definitely aren't supported by solid business cases;  they're just shots-in-the-dark, or a copy of something someone else is doing... and the fan suffers because of it.

In my experience, you know who does this kind of thing REALLY well? Independent league teams. They HAVE TO. They have tiny budgets and rely on tiny profit margins, so every cent counts. These kinds of organizations have to know their customers pretty intimately, have to provide an experience that resonates with them, and they have to communicate their message effectively... if they don't, they're out of business within a year. A good example is the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs. By far, the best actual park experience I've ever had at a baseball game, period. I took my two daughters: we got in for cheap (somewhere aqorund $5 adults, $3 children), they had tons of food/beer options that weren't all that expensive, cheap game programs, a GREAT gift shop with tons of stuff, and most of the seats had shade. There were bumper boats and a kiddie pool in the outfield, a giant sandbox for the small ones, a big playground, and an actual f'ing midway/carnival... and this was just a mid-season game, nothing special at all. I spent about $50, and I didn't even mind, because everyone had such a good time, and I got so much for my money. It was the only game EVER where I wanted to leave before my kids did. AMAZING.