While the NFL tries more ways to keep the Pro Bowl relevant, fun and brand-worthy during the week before the Super Bowl, the real winners of the weekend appear to be hockey and yes, baseball, in grabbing the spotlight and engaging with fans, some with a national footprint but in many instances at the grassroots. On a weekend where there is no real national broadcast focus for the casual fan, baseball and football have found their own spots to bring relevance in the long winter.
For baseball, the push of interest this weekend is not from games, but from the celebration of both the past and the future. From the Baseball Assistance Fund (BAT) Dinner to the Baseball Writers Dinner this past week, media and casual fans got a reminder of all the celebratory points of the game, brought together on one stage. The 2013 award winners, from Miguel Cabrera to Andrew McCutcheon, all shone bright on a cold winter night while luminaries of the past, like Hank Aaron and Sandy Koufax, also took the stage Saturday night in New York. Ironically for such a bright night, the event is not covered by any outlets live, a lost opportunity in the digital age, but the two major January functions always get ample coverage and talk going around baseball’s hot stove.
In addition to the awards and hoopla with the game’s biggest stars, this late January weekend also saw teams and fans of baseball engaging in the grassroots across the country. Several teams, with the Detroit Tigers being one of the most prominent, hosted their annual Fan fests, to remind everyone how great baseball is, and to provide a sneak peak toward spring on a cold winter weekend. Fan fests have always provided great engagement points for baseball teams, and although some teams in major markets look at the benefits as almost being cost prohibitive, those teams in secondary or teams on the rebound effectively use the cost associated to engage at a key buying time with their partners, and with all they need to come through the gates during the long spring and summer months. The other grassroots push unique to baseball is the annual kickoff by the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR), with their SABR day. Always planned late in January, SABR Day used to be a quaint little activity which self-proclaimed “stats nerds” used to start their fantasy baseball talk. Today, with the explosion of analytics in sport, SABR Day has grown with hundreds of local events all connected through social media. From New York to Nashville, Phoenix to Florida, SABR Day serves as a great link for avid baseball fans looking to gather and discuss their favorite sport, with a host of guest speakers planned to add to the mix.
Then ironically, there is also hockey to help provide another subtle reminder that pitchers and catchers are not that far away. The Stadium Series games in New York and Los Angeles, help provide the NHL with another solid platform boost in the US as we head toward Sochi and then the playoffs in the spring. While some may say all the outdoor games are getting to be mundane, the fact that casual fans by the thousands will or did turn out in Dodgers and Yankee Stadiums for the three contests, ones which also brought in some solid brand sponsors and drew more attention to the sport with a good mix of celebrity and nostalgia, is certainly a plus for hockey, but it is also good for baseball. Being able to showcase the two landmark facilities in the dead of winter is another nice perk for baseball, which gets its brand name out in front, and maybe helps re-engage some fans who may have not been thinking baseball in the months following the holidays and leading up to spring training.
Does it also help that a mega-star like Masahiro Tanaka ended up signing in New York this past week to keep baseball top of mind? Sure. However the events of the weekend at the grassroots provide a very fertile ground for baseball as a brand to till the soil and start the ramp up to spring, on a weekend where most fans would naturally still think football, and thanks to the mega-events of the NHL, hockey. Strategic or lucky, baseball got a positive boost.
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