Baseball, like every mature brand, will always have its issues and detractors. Games are too long, season is too long, its players aren’t socially active enough, the uniforms suck, they have managers not coaches, not enough diversity and on and on.
OK.
However what baseball, Major League Baseball has, and does well, probably better than any other league, is the ability to deliver on the big, unique event. Thursday night’s Field of Dreams was the latest, but not the only example, of picking the time, setting the stage, and delivering to its core audience a much-needed dose of tradition in a nontraditional world.
Want more? Home Run Derby, the annual game in Williamsport. Pa., the home of the Little League World Series, games played at Military bases, how about Jackie Robinson Day? All of which find a way to re-engage, and regenerate nostalgic thoughts, brand value, in many cases cause marketing for a game which many think is a bit of a dinosaur.
How is baseball able to do it? Well, time and money are two key pieces for sure. The length of the MLB season, as well as the fact that it played…well…in nice weather…outdoors…gives the sport the ability to find windows of time where big events can be planned. We have seen basketball on aircraft carriers and in outdoor venues, but usually there is a slip and a slide or a gust of wind, and things might go astray. Hockey has found its niche with large outdoor games, but global warming has not been friendly to several versions of The Winter Classic, and its uniqueness has worn off a bit for the casual fan. Football in big stadia in the UK or Mexico, or in Japan in the past also has its version of cool, but you have time differences that don’t lend all the time to prime time, and the limited schedule on the football side doesn’t lend much to player pageantry and involvement. The Yankees and White Sox can recover from a narrow loss in a unique travel situation…an elite NFL team loses in London, or in Mexico, and a whole plan can go down the drain.
And while baseball has made the push to find its younger side…I watched part of the game last night with MLB’s twitch channel as a second screen (one point one of the hosts, Alexandra Giaimo, reminded the younger crowd that she was BORN the year “Field of Dreams” came out) …the reaction, and the audience for such a mega-event was older and generational. It was not a five-inning game over in two hours with lots of innovative buzz. It was baseball, on a slow Thursday night, in prime time, and for the audience that needed to watch, the chords were struck and probably reenforced the deep love that millions…millions…still have for baseball. They kept it simple…and it worked for the audience.
One of the other key growth elements for the mega-baseball event is it spurs what’s next? There were strong hints of a Field of Dreams 2…maybe a “Sandlot” idea…and some “what we would like to see” in baseball and other sports (most of which aren’t realistic), but there is a similar “What’s next” that MLB should be looking deep at…and it also would help raise awareness and tourism in a much-needed town like Dyersville, Iowa.
It is Cooperstown.
For years MLB staged an exhibition game at Doubleday Field, the quaint small stadium which also housed minor league teams for years, but the ability to travel and play an exhibition game, around Hall of Fame induction weekend went away with the rigors of a regular season. So why not a regular season game, maybe not in…but in the area near Cooperstown? This week, and other events, showed the brilliance of pop-up stadium recreation led by MLB’s amazing field architect Murray Cook, so why not find a field near Cooperstown, and recreate the small stadium for an MLB game…Mets vs. Yankees, Red Sox vs. Blue Jays…as part of the natural flow of MLB’s Hall of Fame weekend? It would do a great deal to help restore a slightly sliding economy in a beautiful area, and again reenvision the big event that baseball and its cadence do well.
Now could the next go-round top this week even in Iowa? Who knows, that’s done by the players, the weather, and frankly the interest level in engagement for round two. MLB has lots of notes, and certainly will be selling off so much from this week, to keep improving, but that’s not what is most important.
What is important is reinforcement of the big event done well, timed well, and packaged well, overcomes lots of shortfalls, and that doing well helps expand the legacy well beyond the day to day.
And legacy after all, is what baseball has, probably more than any other sport, and that’s not a bad thing.
They built it, they came, and we await what’s next.
