Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred has made it clear since taking the reins that his focus, and maybe his legacy, is going to be tied to the future…namely the future players and consumers who could and should engage in baseball and all its traditions and experiences. It has been a growing issue for years that baseball, along with other team sports, has been trying to deal with; keeping millennials engaged in a game they play when very young, and then leave for a few decades before returning as they enter into the parenting years and try to rekindle the traditions of sport and the young.
The issue is that today there are more than a few options for family time and entertainment that did not exist before, and the time-challenged family of today does not have the three or four hours to lounge around the ballpark that generations past had. So now the goal becomes find and engage on as many levels as possible, and more importantly make the game more accessible to the young than it has been in decades. Like soccer has done so well, go to the grassroots and build the fan base and then keep them engaged throughout the years when they drifted away, sometimes never to come back.
With that in mind, Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball, in conjunction with the U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM), announced that more than 125 cities, covering 34 U.S. States, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, have signed on as designated PLAY BALL Cities for the inaugural “PLAY BALL Month” of August 2015.
The cities are being designated based on the commitment by each city’s Mayor to sponsor a baseball or softball-related activity during August. Mayors will report their activities to this site. Mayors across the country will host activities to engage children, citizens, families and city departments to organize individual and community-based, baseball and softball-related events, such as playing catch, running bases and more. The activities will be focused on strengthening bonds between families, communities and the game.
The overseeing platform, PlayBall.org serves as the initiative’s online home and is accessible via MLB.com, USABaseball.com and other partner websites. Coaching tips and parent resources are prominent components of the site. PlayBall.org also gives parents, coaches and kids information on how to participate in PLAY BALL activities, links to youth-related news and events, and searchable maps to help find local community leagues.
Of course this won’t solve all the issues with baseball, its cost and its length of play for games in one fell swoop. What it will do is create more opportunities for simple, healthy activity, and in many cases get equipment into the hands of many who may not think to pick up a ball as summer comes to a close. It is not competitive baseball; it is what sport is supposed to be; simple, casual and fun, with the hope that these initial efforts forge a tie that brings lifelong fans back to baseball. With America and the new immigrant living more and more in the inner-city, partnering with City Hall of all size also makes sense, and if the program builds, it will also create new areas of sponsorship and philanthropy for brands through baseball to reach a growing, not an aging fan base.
The list of PLAY BALL Cities can be found here. It’s not a home run, but it is a solid hit for the Commissioner’s office to continue to address perhaps the game’s biggest current issue and get new fans interested and engaged and create an activity that can have a lasting impact on many levels.
