Fall Business Meetings Journal Day Two: It was Out of this World
This week, Brooklyn Cyclones Assistant General Manager Billy Harner will be sharing a daily blog entry from the road, as members of the front office staff attend the Major League Baseball Fall Business Meetings at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV. So Day Two at the MLB Fall Business
This week, Brooklyn Cyclones Assistant General Manager Billy Harner will be sharing a daily blog entry from the road, as members of the front office staff attend the Major League Baseball Fall Business Meetings at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, NV.
So Day Two at the MLB Fall Business Seminar was chock full of baseball from start to finish. Things got started this AM with the Opening Session and a presentation from Casey Brett, the SVP of Business Development at Major League Baseball. He discussed the wild growth and success of MiLB TV this year as well as the additional exposure team’s received through MLB Network as well. Next up was Kristin Barnett, who oversees Marketing for MiLB. She discussed the development of the new MiLB Logo and some of the branding that will be coming in 2024. MLB partnered with the same agency in Portland, OR that created the Just Do It campaign for Nike. I thought that was pretty interesting...seems to have works out well for Nike.
After the opening presentations from the MLB big shots, it was time for the MiLB Awards. We were nominated for a few awards – for Seinfeld Night, the Elaine Dancing Contest and best outside event for the RHONJ Softball Game – but didn’t win any trophies this time around. Since 2012 when they starting doing these Golden Bobblehead Awards, we’ve been nominated for about 30 awards – and we’ve won about six (I think, I’ll have to check the trophy case when I get back to the office). I don’t think anyone keeps official stats on this – so I’ll just say I think we’ve won and been nominated for more Golden Bobbleheads than any other club. The team that won for best promotion was the Eugene Emeralds for their Exploding Whales promotion. If you aren’t familiar with the story watch this video – HERE . Long story short – there was a beached whale that washed up in Oregon in 1970 and they couldn’t figure out how to dispose of it. So the powers that be decided they would put dynamite inside the whale and….things went terribly wrong.
After the MiLB Awards there were some “breakout sessions” which is sort of like those Choose Your Own Adventure books when you were a kid. There are different tracks for ticketing, marketing, stadium ops, promotions, pretty much every area of our business. The first meeting I attended was about collecting data from ticket buyers to help target and retain customers more effectively. My biggest takeaway from the meeting is that we are one of the few teams in all of baseball that still offer paper tickets. Everyone else has made the jump to exclusively digital ticketing. So, I would expect that is something we’ll be exploring soon. Another note was that teams have been putting tickets on sale earlier and earlier. We usually put single game tickets on sale in February or March, but there are teams who have already started selling single game tickets. The folks from MLB encouraged all teams to expand the ticket sales window, so that may be another thing coming your way.
The next session I attended was about the launch of new websites coming to all MiLB Teams in 2024. So, sometime around February or March you’ll see an all-new BrooklynCyclones.com. The demo site looked sharp and allows us to highlight photography of our players and ballpark in a more prominent way. We have great photographers, so I was excited to be able to display their work more prominently. The new site will also be much more mobile friendly. Which makes sense, because I also learned from this meeting that about 73% of all visitors to MiLB websites are using mobile devices. That number was crazy to me, but I guess it makes sense when you consider how many people have smartphones. Even more wild to me was that 70% of ticket sales across all of MiLB were completed on mobile devices.
My next stop for the day was a meeting with the folks who produce some of our promotional items. We talked about some new products and some items we hope to do for 2024 – so the wheels are in motion for our promotional schedule.
After a quick break to call my kids and grab something to eat, we headed over to The Sphere to check out their daily show called Postcard from Earth. It was wild. If you’ve ever been to EPCOT and gone on Soarin…it’s sort of like that but 50 minutes long and much, much, MUCH bigger. The concept is that The Sphere is a spaceship and the lighting and decor in the lobby makes you feel like you’re waiting for the countdown to start before you lift off. Once the show starts, you’re introduced to two astronauts who are waking up from a deep slumber with the help of an all-knowing voice (think “I’m Sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that”). The voice is reminding the astronauts about their former planet Earth and all the beauty around the globe. And away you go on a trip that takes you underwater, through the jungles, down snowy mountains, to remote villages…pretty much everywhere you can think of. It was a very unique experience.
Wednesday is another day of meetings bright and early. I’ll be presenting in one of the breakout sessions in the morning talking about our Seinfeld Night and, yada yada yada, it’ll be great.
One more of these coming your way on Thursday….talk to you then.
- Billy