MLB and their lack of marketing

[OregonDucks]

This may be totally inaccurate, but I feel MLB has some of the most dynamic players and some great young baseball players that could and should be household names for the first time in 20 years. There are teams loaded with talent. Yet we hear about none of this. We got Sunday Night Baseball which could be a product with a huge game feel to it, but it lacks everything to make it feel like a big game.

IMO, the game is there to be grown. We always hear about how MLB needs to grow the game, they have all the ingredients, they just don't have the leadership. They got the players, they got the teams, the gear is actually cool looking as opposed to 20 years ago, the pitch clock actually has helped, the runner on 2B to start extra innings has grown on me, it's all there MLB. Grow the game.

And here we are, a weekend series between the Braves and Dodgers and I had no idea this series was taking place until I checked the scores last night. You have two of the best NL teams going at it in a series and this isn't broadcasted on TV????? It's not even their featured game on Sunday Night Baseball. LOL. Total joke!

 

[Kburjr]

Actually, it is quite refreshing to see that the games are not being marketed as titanic battles of good and evil. This is merely a 3 game series early in a 162 game season. The teams are locally or regionally marketed. The only games I care to see are only Brewers games and local t-ball. It's about the game and not the team.

 

[OregonDucks]

Actually, it is quite refreshing to see that the games are not being marketed as titanic battles of good and evil. This is merely a 3 game series early in a 162 game season. The teams are locally or regionally marketed. The only games I care to see are only Brewers games and local t-ball. It's about the game and not the team.

Although I can somewhat agree with this, if you're a fan of the team it certainly is also about the team. But yes, I can find enjoyment in watching an Emeralds game just as much as a Little League game. But still, you have two of the best teams going at in in a weekend and you can't find it nationally televised.

If the Chiefs vs 49ers were week 3, it would most certainly be televised, likely the primetime afternoon game or SNF game.

If it's game 16 of a 82 NBA game season, if it's Denver vs Celtics, it's going to be televised.

You have to televise these games and teams to help assist that drama and build up when they get to playing these series in August/September or in the playoffs. You have to help get the attention of a national audience so people can get to know who's on each team and have seen them play so when October comes around they are somewhat invested.

It's a model similar to how the Braves and Cubs got so many fans in the 90s. Braves were always on national television on TBS. I, in Oregon, could see many Brave games because of this. Or Cubs on WGN. I again in Oregon got to see plenty of Cubs games because of WGN being nationally televised.

 

[Top Cat]

Baseball is structurally resistant to the current model of sports that is popular. Mega-star dominating a sport and dragging his team to hardware. Lebron and Jordan in the NBA. Mahomes and Brady in the NFL. In College sports you have mega-coaches who moreorless run programs, though that is under siege as athletes creep closer to capitalizing on their labor and value.

Bonds, Trout, and Ohtani? Bupkis. The Angels? They weren't a dominant team with both Ohtani and Trout, in fact it was quite the opposite with them. They were a clown car. That'd be impossible if Trout and Ohtani were catered to like QB's and NBA mega-stars are. Hell, you just get a lot less per dollar in FA in baseball than you do in the NFL. You get a Kirk Cousins to replace a bozo like Ridder? 2-4 win improvement even if Cousins isn't that good. Baseball? Maybe a 5 win difference, or .5 wins in NFL terms.

Baseball is a great sport, but it has a structural problem in terms of marketing. It doesn't help the badass starter that could throw a no-hitter every night is getting pulled after 7 for a reliever. One of few reasons to watch a west coast night game was to see prime Clayton Kershaw go nuts on people. Or alternatively, watch Ohtani do the remarkable on both the mound and at the plate. Even Hockey doesn't have this problem to the extent baseball does.

 

[OregonDucks]

Baseball has the uniqueness of trying to capitalize off each mini series. Yes its a long season, 162 game is a ton, but if they hyped some of these series, it can give it a big time feel. You start to break it down and realize how important it is, even in the scale of a 162 game season, that teams need to win a lot of these 3 and 4 games series and you can promote that.

 

[Top Cat]

Baseball has the uniqueness of trying to capitalize off each mini series. Yes its a long season, 162 game is a ton, but if they hyped some of these series, it can give it a big time feel. You start to break it down and realize how important it is, even in the scale of a 162 game season, that teams need to win a lot of these 3 and 4 games series and you can promote that.

WBC does quite well. A bigger problem is US/Canadian baseball fans are legitimately pathetic and have no energy at all. Many international baseball games look more like soccer matches in terms of vibes. This is more of an America/Canada, and MLB problem than it is a baseball problem per se.

American baseball fans are just mid. Also MLB is miserable marketing their product outside of get-out-to-the-park promotions.

 

[OregonDucks]

WBC does quite well. A bigger problem is US/Canadian baseball fans are legitimately pathetic and have no energy at all. Many international baseball games look more like soccer matches in terms of vibes. This is more of an America/Canada, and MLB problem than it is a baseball problem per se.

American baseball fans are just mid. Also MLB is miserable marketing their product outside of get-out-to-the-park promotions.

And instead of trying to excite the American/Canadian market and get those more invested, they just go out and sign international players who sleep-eat-breathe baseball.

I don't know about the rest of the country, but youth baseball is dying out here. Numbers are way way down, lacrosse has taken over as the spring sport, or football camps. You don't see anyone trying to market to or rile up the youth crowd or get parents involved or excited about youth baseball to get their numbers back up. It's like they are stuck in their ways and just letting it flutter away.

 

[rsw626]

And instead of trying to excite the American/Canadian market and get those more invested, they just go out and sign international players who sleep-eat-breathe baseball.

I don't know about the rest of the country, but youth baseball is dying out here. Numbers are way way down, lacrosse has taken over as the spring sport, or football camps. You don't see anyone trying to market to or rile up the youth crowd or get parents involved or excited about youth baseball to get their numbers back up. It's like they are stuck in their ways and just letting it flutter away.

As has been mentioned in other threads you've started about this, you need to really expand where you get your info, every social media platform I use has tons of baseball news, including about the young stars, same with every sports app I use, start with the MLB app.

As far as youth baseball, it must be just Oregon, here in FLA, there are 3-4 youth baseball facilities in about a 10 mile radius, each has 3-4 fields, and there seem to always be games on, even when there's not, you see kids out there either practicing with their dads or a few friends, or they're having a pickup game. Same when I visited family "back home" in TN recently.

 

[wazzu31]

This may be totally inaccurate, but I feel MLB has some of the most dynamic players and some great young baseball players that could and should be household names for the first time in 20 years. There are teams loaded with talent. Yet we hear about none of this. We got Sunday Night Baseball which could be a product with a huge game feel to it, but it lacks everything to make it feel like a big game.

IMO, the game is there to be grown. We always hear about how MLB needs to grow the game, they have all the ingredients, they just don't have the leadership. They got the players, they got the teams, the gear is actually cool looking as opposed to 20 years ago, the pitch clock actually has helped, the runner on 2B to start extra innings has grown on me, it's all there MLB. Grow the game.

And here we are, a weekend series between the Braves and Dodgers and I had no idea this series was taking place until I checked the scores last night. You have two of the best NL teams going at it in a series and this isn't broadcasted on TV????? It's not even their featured game on Sunday Night Baseball. LOL. Total joke!

Front office’s are full of nerdy guys who hate baseball, got a commissioner who can’t speak to the public without hating him. Got a majority of owners who care more about extorting the public for money rather than winning. Problem is leadership with MLB and MLBPA. Along with it is really hard to be a marketer for the sport when baseball intentionally became a regional sport.