Minor League baseball is big business across North America, no question. There is probably no group of passionate people who understand the value of ROI and innovation more than minor league baseball executives and every night they find new ways to draw thousands to ballparks regardless of what goes on between the lines. The quality of baseball is nice, but the experience and most times the affordability, of the event is the real draw.
Even with that draw, sometimes minor league All-Star games can be a tough sell, especially at the lower ranks. They can be costly to run and don’t feature names that most fans know so they can be a disruption in the flow of a season. Finding an edge to market the game is not always easy, because the game has to be “special,”…it features the leagues best young players…but it also has to have all the fun bells and whistles of what people come to expect from the minors. This past week the South Atlantic League found a way to make their All-Star Game fun, get it some national attention, and draw some extra bodies in to see their young stars.
Now it goes without saying that sometimes the best promotions are pulled off with luck, location and a little bit of planning, and”The Sally” had all of those in their favor. They have a team, The Charleston RiverDogs, run by the innovative Mike Veeck in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, Charleston, South Carolina. The have a great tradition of minor league baseball and fan innovation in the league, and they have very smart business people. That combo, along with some of Veeck’s partners, a museum seeking attention and some great weather gave the league a major league boost for its all-star game, one that any other league will be challenged to match in the future.
Veeck and longtime friend and former Padres executive Dan Migala are always looking for things to do differently, and sitting on the far side of Charleston Harbor was the retired air craft carrier the USS Yorktown. Migala had done events on a carrier with the Padres and the Taylor Made brand before, and the two decided to approach the Yorktown about having the Sally Home Run competition on the Yorktown. The museum heads were very supportive, they were looking to always draw traffic and attention to the fabled ship, and a home run hitting contest on an aircraft carrier was born. However what made the contest an even bigger hit was the ROI the sold sponsor, Miller Beer got, for entitling the contest. Its uniqueness and the fact that it was the first got media from around the world to mention the Miller brand in their reporting, which is not always the easiest thing to do. The brand integration into the unique event was flawless, as was the viral video distribution. The promoters also drew extra fans to the ship to watch the event, giving out a code for people to mention to get on the ship at no charge. The result? Several days of national attention, extra value brought to the players participating, a great fan experience for people who came not from just Charleston but from all over the south, and several thousand additional bodies at the ballpark for the game the next night. An event that helped the team, the sponsor, the fan, a local historical institution, the league and the game overall proved to be a huge win.
However the story does not stop there. You see, “The Sally” also has a Hall 0f Fame, which over the years has honored everyone from Ty Cobb and Don Mattingly to umpires like Joe West and execs like Bing Devine, all of whom have passed through the league on the way to Major League success. This year, the league honored one of Veeck’s partners, the actor Bill Murray, and Murray willingly and excitedly participated in all the ceremonies, including delivering a must-watch acceptance speech that went viral. That timing and exposure, all carefully placed, put the South Atlantic League near the top of a crowded national sports calendar, and showed again how minor league innovation can drive major league attention.
Great planning, fun events and proper execution led to some well deserved time in the spotlight for an All-Star team of sports professionals who really deserve their due.
