Like an army plotting a multi-front offensive, Major League Baseball is setting in motion an October merchandising and marketing blitz aimed at winning the hearts and minds – and wallets – of sports fans.
The plans include a first-of-its-kind inter-sport co-branding effort with NASCAR and Budweiser; the rollout during the current post season of a hipper re-design of the teams’baseball jackets; a more Gen-X look to their locker-room T-shirts, and a coordinated effort between baseball and its corporate sponsors to make baseball a dominant theme in television and print advertisements run.
MLB’s take-no-prisoners approach is aimed at establishing October as baseball’s month and boosting the sport’s presence in the $9 billion sports licensing retail game.
And while the marketing wizards at the controls of baseball’s future had high hopes for the plan’s success, the presence of both the Mets and Yankees in the League Championship Series is sure to raise the profile of the sport that much higher.
There sure is room for improvement. Baseball has regularly lagged the NFL and NBA in terms of retail sales of its merchandise, particularly when it comes to jackets.
“In the past, we haven’t done a good job communicating with the fans that they could buy the exact same items worn on the field by the players,” said Steve Armus, MLB’s group licensing director, who noted – none too subtly – that the new jackets would be hitting retail stores this week.
Before the NBA lockout and the home run chase between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, baseball sold $1.9 billion in retail goods, compared to $3.6 billion for the NFL and $2.6 billion for the NBA, according to industry statistics.
MLB closed the gap between it and the NFL last year, while the NBA, thanks to the lockout, stumbled badly.
MLB Senior Vice President Tim Brosnan, said the leagues and the licensees – Majestic Apparel, VF Knitwear, New Era Cap, Rawlings and Russell Corp. – have been working more closely than ever to revamp the collection.
The redesign of the line will include an updated locker room shirt and cap with an understated design similar to that of “Abercrombie & Fitch or the Gap,” Brosnan said.
The move to place MLB’s World Series logo on Wally Dallenbach’s No. 25 Chevy in four NASCAR races this month is a dramatic stab at increasing its young adult viewership – by placing the mark in front of a favorable, albeit distinct, demographic.
The hope is that some of the 150,000 at the track each week, plus millions of TV viewers, will tune into the ball games.
As for the closer work between baseball and its corporate sponsors – including MasterCard, Anheuser-Busch and Claridin allergy medicine – one glimpse will tell you things are different. Instead of running their usual ads, the companies have developed baseball-themed ads to complete the emotional circle.
Certainly the NFL and NBA won’t take the new ambitious push by baseball – which coincides with Brosnan’s elevation to head of MLB Properties – lying down.
In fact, the NBA marketing brain trust has OK’d a first-of-its-kind early-season marketing plan that kicked off yesterday. That plan, in conjunction with 2,100 Kmart stores, puts the two pro sports on a marketing collision course this month.