A serious restructuring of Minor League Baseball made some new followers amongst manufacturers, and its future advertising and marketing prospects are getting brighter.
In 2021, the minor leagues streamlined from greater than 160 groups in 14 leagues over 5 ranges of play to only 120 groups—or 4 for every of 30 Main League Baseball (MLB) franchises—in 11 leagues at 4 ranges. As an alternative of working as an settlement between MLB and particular person minor league groups, this extension of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s “One Baseball” initiative created extra environment friendly enterprise practices throughout the game by sharing assets—together with advertising and marketing and sponsorship alternatives—between main league golf equipment and minor league associates.
Kristin Barnett, Minor League Baseball’s senior advertising and marketing director, illustrated that concept final fall by changing the minors’ standalone emblem with yet another intently resembling MLB’s—full with 4 stars representing every degree of MLB’s participant improvement system. Whereas she famous that, since her arrival throughout baseball’s winter conferences in 2022, MLB has been centered on rising all types of baseball—youth, minors, majors—by its “Baseball Is Something Else” marketing campaign with Wieden+Kennedy, Barnett indicated that the minors’ 120 years of historical past and comparatively new configuration, together with a centralized workplace, current a singular alternative for progress.
“Minor leagues are really interesting in that we have the storied legacy, which you know if you are a baseball nut,” she stated. “But as our remit is to grow the sport by attracting net new fans—particularly more casual fans who might not be as tied into industry publications—it’s really important for us that we have a brand with a clear meaning, that people know what Minor League Baseball stands for, that they know what the brand experience is going to be when they come to the ballpark.”
By “modernizing the nostalgia” of the minors’ visible components and giving every of its groups toolkits to adapt efforts like the brand new “Only in MiLB” marketing campaign to their markets, Barnett and her workforce are providing new methods to promote baseball’s developmental leagues. Because it stands, MiLB is the second-most attended skilled sports activities league in North America past solely MLB. Its footprint covers 70% of the U.S. inhabitants—with a 3rd of its franchises current outdoors of a significant sports activities market.
Final 12 months, MiLB attendance elevated 3.8% to greater than 32 million, with per-game attendance reaching its highest common since 2009.
Casey Brett, Main League Baseball’s svp of enterprise improvement, identified that the previous minor-league mannequin usually required golf equipment to choose into broader nationwide sponsorships—making them a tougher promote. When Nationwide—which shaped a partnership with Minor League Baseball in 2019—stayed on after realignment, Brett famous that its Street to the Present team-by-team editorial studies on prospects become campaigns utilized by all 120 MiLB groups in addition to MLB properties. As MiLB sees extra widespread campaigns from nationwide manufacturers like Oatly and T-Cellular—which showcased its balls-and-strikes monitoring know-how used within the minors on the MLB Futures Sport throughout All-Star Week in Arlington, Texas—its central workplace and entrepreneurs are discovering methods to point out manufacturers how they will make a significant impression throughout video screens, LED indicators and jersey patches nationwide with minor effort.
