, The Washington Post; Baseball teams put ads everywhere. One summer league team is ditching them entirely.
"“The
current model [in minor league baseball] is put ads everywhere.
Ballparks have turned into the Yellow Pages. What we’ve seen is that’s
outdated. People aren’t choosing to do business with people just because
of the relationship they have with their favorite sports team. They
choose to do business with people based on who offers the best
experiences, and that’s what we want to go all in on.”
Minor
league and summer league teams can rarely market individual players to
fans, and it isn’t easy to convince many of those fans to hold a rooting
interest in the local team. The players move on to other clubs too
quickly to gain name recognition, and fans already follow major league
clubs, making it hard to get them hooked on lower tiers of the game. So
to fill the stands, minor league and summer league franchises turn to
promotions, fun merchandise, eclectic concessions and other chicanery.
The Bananas, who play in the Coastal Plain League,
call that method of marketing, “fans first.” They’re so invested in the
approach that the team offers workshops to business leaders under the
banner “Fans First University.” The front office pays less attention to
winning games and more attention to making sure spectators have a good
time."
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