Every year on the calendar there are those larger than the game, outsized events that involved everyone from executives and fans to brands and personalities large and small. Radio Row at the Super Bowl, the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Soccerex, the NABC Conference at the Men’s basketball Final Four are all in that mix, but none come close to the thousands of would-be workers, executives, players, broadcasters and business people that converge in a site, usually in somewhat warm weather, each year the first week of December for the Baseball Winter Meetings.
This week the annual gathering is put on hold by The Pandemic, reduced to virtual meetings and announcements that cannot match the randomness and chaos that usually abounds for those in and around baseball.
The combination of the Hot Stove heating up, players looking for key contracts and the face to face encounters that every key executive has, made The MLB Winter Meetings the place where baseball does their business right before the lull of the holidays. Combine a baseball trade show with thousands of vendors showing the latest promotional tools and innovations in fan engagement big and small, and a job fair that brings thousands of people from all walks of life to try and fill a precious few positions in front office roles in both the Major and Minor leagues, often in a location like the Opryland Hotel in Nashville or Disney or Washington, DC that has thousands of tourists milling about, and the interaction, accessibility and sometimes quizzical looks that go back and forth amongst business folk and fans is pretty unique.
More impressively though is that the Winter Meetings gave baseball a consistent offseason business presence to set the tone for the rest of the offseason and send some pretty clear messages to millions of fans through the media that come to the meetings, attend events and mill about the various lobbies looking for news. From columnists to bloggers, it was a hodgepodge of coverage for stories big and small, from Hall of Fame announcements to player signings to offseason community initiatives, organizational meetings and other random goings on. There were few places where you could catch up with long lost friends or causally meet a young rising business star, all within a few feet of each other. Hectic yes, a great part of the fabric of sports business in North America, for sure.
The Baseball Winter Meetings are part business, part spectacle and part collective deep breath for the sport as the cold weather approaches, but they also served as a loud platform to spread the word about key non-game initiatives, and the league-wide auction is a great sway baseball still has over sport year round.
Now maybe the use of technology, along with the revamped business side of MLB to now include the Minor League operations, will mean that the Winter Meetings will return in some sort of scaled back fashion in the years to come. While it would probably be more cost efficient, it would be a shame , as it a year of lost traditions, the tradition filled game of baseball can stand to hold on to this mass gathering and cultural happening as we head to the quiet days of winter ahead.
For all the Winter Meetings I was lucky to attend, from Orlando and San Diego to Indianapolis, Washington and Nashville and Dallas, it was always a great way to wrap the year, listen and learn about best practices and meet friends new and old, mostly randomly at a bar or in a hotel lobby. Sure it was a business play, but the social, casual ability to just show up and reconnect, was the real score.
To all those working MLB’s virtual events this week good luck, but we will miss you in the lobby. Great, chaotic fun for all those in the game.
