The Business of Balls and Strikes: A conversation with Tacoma Rainiers president Aaron Artman

When the Tacoma Rainiers take the field at Cheney Stadium this evening, it will be the continuation of a long history of minor league baseball in the South Sound.

The team has played at Cheney Stadium for nearly 50 years, and has enjoyed local ownership for most of its history. In 2006, however, Dallas, Tex.-based Schlegel Sports announced it would purchase the Rainiers. Most fans will say it was a good move because it was the first time in awhile that an ownership group made some solid investments in the team. A staff of nearly three-dozen have been busy this off-season, working out of a University Place office, raising its visibility to South Sound baseball fans, and aggressively lining up corporate sponsorship. To that end, the team recently announced a five-year sponsorship deal with Venture Bank for its Gold Club area.

For team president Aaron Artman, 2008 will be his first full-season since he was hired last June. Artman, 32, is familiar to sports business. He worked for six years as the sales and marketing director at Mandalay Baseball Properties. After a brief hiatus from the industry (he worked as an executive at Microsoft Corp.), he returned to sports.

To read the rest of this article from the Tacoma Daily Index click here.