“Take me out to the ballgame” is the first commandment of the chorus in the now famous song written by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer in 1908.
And, when a consumer goes to a ballgame, they don’t just enter a stadium, they enter a ballpark, a civic space, a group experience, and a dream. In fact, when most consumers attend a baseball game, they enter a ritual-driven, nostalgic dreamscape. And, that ballpark dreamscape now has more similarities to Disneyworld than to the general-purpose stadium of the 1970s. Just think about your own ballpark experience. Your dreamscape likely includes childhood memories, hometown pride, ice cream, and memories of perfect summer nights. And all these contours of your ballpark dreamscape are triggered by the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the ballpark. Many of these triggers are rituals embedded in the game – the ceremonial first pitch, the national anthem, the seventh inning stretch.
Fans enter a dreamscape, but they also enter a time machine to a 19th century game developed after the Civil War, before mass ownership of timepieces, with no time limit. And this is the tension of the moment. How does a 19th century game both fortified and frozen in nostalgia survive in a competitive entertainment jungle against newer, faster, often more violent, competitors?
What does the 2021 ballpark experience we sampled in our drive across America tell us about the 21st century American consumer? What can marketers learn from the crowd at their local baseball game?
In 17 days our father and son road trip took us through 21 states, and 14 baseball games, from a perfect small town, New Mexico evening with the Pecos League Roswell Invaders to the massive, new Atlanta Braves amusement park masquerading as a ballpark. We didn’t set out to make our Jeep trip across America an ethnographic study of American consumers, but night after night we scribbled down our observations. And, all these observations came together on paper in the 1st Freddy’s Frozen Custard in Wichita, Kansas during a June heatwave.
Over 6,462 miles in our Jeep from DC to LA our father and son research team developed 21 insights from the 2021 baseball season. But, before we walk through these, we need to thank a few teams. Thank you Durham Bulls, Las Vegas Aviators, Salt Lake Bees, Kansas City Monarchs, Dayton Dragons, and Florence Y’alls for showing us what an innovative ballpark experience looks like. And special thanks to the Roswell Invaders for showing us real community baseball and for teaching us that “nowhere is somewhere to someone.”
- It’s about connection.
If we learned anything, it’s that ballpark attendance is more about connection to community than it is about wins or losses. Whether it is the newly renamed Kansas City Monarchs connecting fans to the great Negro League team of their past or the Florence Y’alls connecting fans with the great local food of the Cincinnati area, every baseball game is a collective experience in the experience economy. As we have noted before, no one attends a baseball game in isolation. It is a communal, civic ritual with connection points to friends, family, co-workers, and a community.
Connection is one of Gerald and Lindsay Zaltman’s “deep metaphors” from their book Marketing Metaphoria. The seven deep metaphors are balance, transformation, journey, container, resource, control, and connection. And, the ballpark experience is all about the deep metaphor of connection. As Jesse Cole, founder of Fans First Entertainment and owner of the Savannah Bananas has noted, “It’s not about winning and losing. It’s not just about the baseball game. It’s about belonging and feeling like you are part of something.”
The implication for business strategists is to understand that they operate in the experience economy, and they need to consider how their consumers’ experience can be engineered for authentic connection.
And, while we’re on connection, it’s worth noting just how many first dates we observed at the ballpark. In a world of dating apps, a three-hour date at a baseball game gives a new couple far more time to know each other than a movie. It really shouldn’t have been a surprise, since the song “Take Me Out To the Ballgame” is actually about a young woman (Katie Casey) wanting her “young beau” to take her to a baseball game.
2. The ballpark experience is a series of rituals within a civic ritual.
Embedding your product in ritual creates durable value. On our road trip one stadium announcer prefaced the 7th inning stretch singing of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” as “it’s time to go to baseball church.” He was not far off. Every culture and religion uses ritual to share meaning. A baseball game is a ritual of the spring and summer, a civic ritual. And, within the game there are numerous sub-rituals, including the national anthem, the first pitch, the seventh inning stretch, buying peanuts and Cracker Jack, and waiting in line for your favorite local food.
Baseball is an entertainment experience protected by the iron bonds of its rituals. What rituals have you built around your product or service? What rituals could you build? How can you embed your product in ritual?
3. Stadium as Amusement Park
The game we attended at the new Atlanta Braves stadium was an eye opener. Featuring a zipline for children, and plenty of interactive entertainment spaces, it was more amusement park than stadium. This stands in sharp contrast to the sterile, industrial, general-purpose stadium of the 1970s. In the post-war era the progression has been from old ballparks, to general purpose concrete stadiums, to retro-nostalgia ballparks, to an amusement park for baseball.
Again, this highlights the importance of the experience economy. It also highlights a strategic imperative. From a commercial perspective, is a baseball team an athletic enterprise or an entertainment business? If it is an entertainment business, as Jesse Cole of the cutting-edge Savannah Bananas has argued, then stadium as amusement park or possibly stadium as circus is a logical progression.
Virtually all professional baseball teams are local monopolies – one per city. But, are they competing against other teams for fans? No. They are competing against all other available entertainment options. Know your business.
4. Be you, beautifully quirky you.
The most compelling ballpark experiences are the most authentic, the most quirky. They are impossible to duplicate. This highlights a central learning of our trip. In everything, be yourself. Don’t focus on competitors. Focus on your customers, your fans, and give them something authentic. Don’t chase or mimic competitors. Be authentically odd, and you are impossible to duplicate. Your town is known for a strange water tower with “y’all” written it? Own it and call the team the “Y’alls”. Make the mascot the “Y’All Star”! You’re Roswell, New Mexico and known for an alien crash landing, then give the team an alien mascot and paint the bases green. A parallel learning is that smaller teams and minor league teams are closer to their communities, closer to the fans, and have to work harder. Because of this, they are more distinctive, more innovative and more fun. And this highlights another rule of business, that the real innovation is always on the raggedy edge. That’s why Asa is interning for the Savannah Bananas in Savannah, Georgia. The Bananas are reengineering the baseball fan experience, putting fans first.
5. Place Power
How quickly does the ballpark experience tell you that you are in a specific place, a river city, Tobacco Road, the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains? On our road trip we started calling this “place-ness”, because we didn’t have a better name for it. The more uniquely of a place and less generic the experience is, the greater the connection. The Durham Bulls, Salt Lake Bees, Colorado Rockies, Dayton Dragons and the Florence Y’all’s were great experiences because they were heavily placed! This is the opposite of a sterile, standardized landscape.
The Salt Lake Bees say they have the best view in baseball, and they do, with beautiful mountains as the outfield backdrop. That’s place-ness. The Durham Bulls integrate their ballpark into Tobacco Road, with an outfield restaurant of the same name and with the Lucky Strike water tower behind left field. The Colorado Rockies have an enormous mural telling the story of the West. And the Dayton Dragons are built into Dayton’s urban and industrial landscape.
In a world feeling more generic and standardized, the uniqueness of place is a differentiator.
6. Unique, hyper local food.
Food is the 3rd command from Katie Casey in the song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”.
In that song Katie famously asks her boyfriend to buy her some peanuts and Cracker Jack.
Both are still popular ballpark eats, but what we observed on our road trip was the hyper-localization of ballpark food, the long tail of ballpark food offerings. Gone are the days of the generic ballpark hot dog. Instead, we witnessed moonshine infused offerings in Atlanta, a wide array of local tacos, a Mexican mango ice cream and hot sauce concoction in Salt Lake, and local cheese coneys in Florence, Kentucky. Almost every ballpark featured the town’s most popular barbecue and local beer. We suspect that this hyper-localization will continue, as teams work to consistently attract fans. Sometimes the food can be directly tied to the team name. The Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp (Yes, that is their team name. They are the AAA affiliate for the Miami Marlins.) sell some fantastic fried shrimp. And, the Savannah Bananas continue to push the innovative envelope by selling banana themed cocktails and even fresh bananas.
7. Demography as destiny and the Latin Americanization of Beisbol.
By 2020 approximately 31.9% of major league baseball players were Latin American, with most Latin players coming from the Big 4 – Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Similarly, American Latinos are increasing as a percentage of the baseball fan base. Part of this is due to basic American demography and the increase in the Latino or Hispanic population. The 2020 Census found that there are 62.1 million American Latinos. And while the non-Hispanic population in the United States grew by 4.3% since 2010, the Latino population grew 23% since the last Census. The other part of the equation is baseball’s targeted marketing to this population. And, this effort goes well beyond the LA Dodgers “Somos Los Dodgers” campaign or the San Francisco Giant’s playing as the Gigantes on Cinco de Mayo. The best example is Minor League Baseball’s “Copa de la Diversion” in which local, minor-league teams adopt a Spanish language alternative team name. The Durham Bulls become the Durham Cervezas. The Charlotte Knights become the Caballeros. The Salt Lake Bees become the Abejas de Salt Lake. The San Jose Giants become the San Jose Churros. And, in our favorite example, the Las Vegas Aviators become the Reyes de Plata, celebrating the Spanish speaking silver miners that made Nevada the Silver State. As it turns out, the fans absolutely love the alternative team names, with many fans wearing the Spanish language team apparel to the games. And, then there is the rise of Latin fare in the ballpark, from chorizo to churros to the all-powerful taco.
8. Taco juggernaut: The rise and rise of the Taco.
If it hasn’t happened already, the taco will surpass the hot dog as America’s favorite baseball food. If that sounds crazy, consider these two facts. Americans buy more salsa than ketchup. And, Americans buy more tortillas than hot dog buns. In fact, as far back as 1992 the New York Times reported that “ketchup, long the king of American condiments, has been dethroned…”
In our road trip we ended up eating ballpark tacos far more than hot dogs. And, we were not disappointed. Our best taco was in Phoenix at a Diamondbacks vs Angels game. But, throughout our trip the taco was omnipresent. One team, the Fresno Grizzlies, occasionally even take the field as the Fresno Tacos.
Interestingly, so many of the ballpark foods we think of as classically American are either German or created by German immigrants. Before World War I the hot dog was a frankfurter. That cold beer in your hand on a hot July evening? Also German. And then there is Cracker Jack, invented by German immigrant Frederick William Rueckheim in Chicago and run by the Rueckheim brothers.
If history is any guide, we should expect Latin and Asian street food to dominate ballparks in the 21st century.
At the moment, the taco appears to be unstoppable, a juggernaut. It is powered by demography and flexibility. The demography is obvious. The flexibility is important too, because almost any locally relevant food can be placed inside the shell or tortilla. This allows the taco to adapt to almost any local foodscape.
9. Globalization.
We’ve already noted the Latin Americanization of baseball. But, we also observed its globalization. As luck would have it, the Diamondbacks vs Angels game that we attended in Phoenix also featured Shohei Ohtani, the Angel’s pitcher and power hitting phenom from Oshu, Iwate Prefecture, Japan and the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters. In a perfect example of globalization, we encountered more than a few Angels fans, wearing Ohtani jerseys, that drove the 5+ hours from southern California in order to watch their favorite player take the mound. Many American baseball players have finished their careers playing in Japan. The best book on this phenomenon, and Japanese baseball is “Slugging It Out in Japan” by Warren Cromartie. But, Ohtani is a powerful example of the reverse trend, bringing Japanese-style baseball to America. Further to this point, we believe that American baseball teams should study the Japanese ballpark experience for inspiration, experimenting with Japanese fan traditions.
10. Integration of GIFs and audio memes.
Audio and video memes are an increasingly important part of communication, especially informal communication among GenZ and Millennials. Many of the ballparks we visited integrated audio and video memes, and this is becoming increasingly popular within the MLB community. At Round Rock, Texas we saw the use of humorous Will Ferrell clips from the movie “Anchorman”. We also observed many dancing team mascot GIFs on the jumbotron. Smaller teams without large video displays focused more on audio memes like “wooooooo” and the “Ha! Goteem” audio clip that went viral in 2015, the latter being used when a runner was thrown out at 1st or 2nd. The wider implication is that marketers will increasingly reference memes and meme culture in their advertising and in the consumer experience.
11. Instagramable backdrops
In our road trip we encountered a large number of ballpark backdrops and areas clearly designed for social media photos, especially Instagram. Most teams had large step and repeat logo backdrops, team logo sculptures, and mascot photo areas. And, many of these backdrops were hash tagged. Given the rise of social media and photo sharing, we expect this trend to continue. These Instagram areas are a win-win for the baseball team and the fan. The baseball team gets publicity from the fan, and the fan gains publicity from the wider baseball fan community. The Durham Bulls and Colorado Rockies had clearly invested the most in Instagram backdrop areas, with the Rockies investing in this before hosting the All-Star game. Iconic, branded backdrops are great marketing, and virtually free. The implication is that B2C businesses that control real estate and deliver an experience should invest heavily in Instagramable spaces.
12. Detailed theming.
Some of the best ballpark experiences were made better by a special attention to detail, little things that reminded you where you were. The Durham Bulls experience was Disneyesque in this respect, with subtle theming and branding around the stadium. We have already noted how ballparks may be moving into an amusement park era, but the best also borrow heavily from theme parks.
13. Digitization and the decline of the paper ticket?
Most entertainment venues had been moving toward digital ticketing before the pandemic as an efficient, cost cutting measure. The pandemic seems to have only accelerated this trend, as every business has sought out “contactless” solutions. Some technologists have called this wider trend “de-materialization” – eliminating a physical product by turning it into a feature on another device. An example of this is the alarm clock, which is now just a feature on a smart phone. The paper ticket also appears to be dematerializing. This is more efficient, but it eliminates a classic fan memento. We think that some sports teams will re-materialize the humble ticket, turning it into a premium memento and a stylish reminder of a family night out, a date or a great time with friends. The business implication here is that the small things in a business transaction, the things we might try to streamline away, could become critical and valuable customer touchpoints. We think that the humble ticket will be reimagined as art with a unique design for each game and collected like stamps.
14. Smaller is better.
Smaller minor league parks like Durham, Las Vegas, Florence, and Dayton were better able to provide a quality experience with fewer pain points and more local flair. This suggests to us that there could be something like the long tail of niche marketing for baseball. It also highlights the challenges of growth in the experience economy. Growing too fast can exceed a business’ ability to deliver a premium experience. Growing too fast can disappoint longtime, core customers. Every business should work to build a fan base. And, even growth can stretch the loyalty of a passionate fan base.
15. The digital engagement gap
In our experience, it is rare for a baseball team to have a strong social media presence that spans Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. In our road trip, we observed that the average team is at a basic, proficiency level with Twitter and Facebook, and often not even in the game on Instagram and TikTok. They post about wins and losses and provide basic information about rain delays or the timing of fireworks. But, younger fans, GenZ fans, expect significant Instagram content, trends on TikTok, meme references, and witty responses to fan comments. Some teams invest heavily and effectively in this area. The Durham Bulls, for example, have an exceptional social media marketing team, participating in different viral trends, especially on Tiktok. The gold standard for digital engagement is the Savanah Bananas. With Tiktok trends galore and funny Instagram reels, the Savanah Bananas have over 800,000 followers on Tiktok and over 100,000 followers on Instagram, rivaling and often exceeding many Major League teams.
The business implication here is that we now operate in an Attention Economy, and businesses need to use the full arsenal of social media tools to grab and hold attention. Even many entertainment businesses underperform in this area, and that makes social media marketing a significant opportunity space.
16. The limits of affinity group marketing?
Most teams had at least one featured affinity group for each game: frontline workers, first responders, local college alumni, military night, Pride night, farm night, Scout night, etc. Affinity group marketing clearly works. It sells tickets. It combines the passion of the fan experience with the passion of an affinity group experience. It helps teams fill the stands. Sports teams have used this strategy effectively for years. But, have sports marketers exhausted this strategy? Does it dilute or enhance the experience with the sports brand? We don’t have an answer here. It appears to continue to work. And, if something works, you should generally stay with it until it doesn’t. But, every trend and every strategy run their course. Has this one?
17. Patriotism.
America is still a very patriotic place. Patriotism and civic pride are hard wired into the baseball fan experience. In Round Rock, Texas we stood for the national anthem and witnessed a sincere and moving rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner. Everything and everyone in the ballpark stopped for that song. And we witnessed this same stillness and authenticity almost everywhere we went. We aren’t advocating for the insincere marketing of products as patriotic, for wrapping them in the flag. And, there is a distinction to be made between patriotism and nationalism. What we are saying is that America is still a deeply patriotic place, and marketers need to understand that.
18. Service with a smile.
We have focused on the ballpark experience, but we often forget who delivers that experience. The employees in an experience economy are absolutely critical, and what we experienced at the Las Vegas Aviators emphasized just how far great customer service can move a business.
From the moment we entered the stadium we noticed that something was different. We couldn’t put our finger on it right away. But, after buying food, visiting the team store, and getting water to hydrate in the 108F heat, we realized that it was the customer service. The Las Vegas Aviators are worth studying. They learned from surrounding service businesses, transferring learnings from casino and hotel hospitality to the ballpark experience!
The Aviators applied learning from high volume food preparation and service to their in-ballpark restaurants. And, they applied learning from best in class retailing to their team store. But, more than these, it was clear that ALL of the employees at the stadium had been selected, hired and trained to be customer focused. The Aviators have it all, a 21st century ballpark, great amenities, a solid team, AND world class hospitality. Long after we forget the details of that day we will remember the hospitality and the heat, in that order.
19. The challenge of summer heat in a warming world.
This brings us to the challenge of society, government and business adapting to climate change. When we set out on our road trip, we planned to camp as much as we could, saving money, and enjoying the great outdoors. That didn’t happen because of a historic heatwave that baked the South, the West, and the Great Plains. This highlights a problem that baseball teams and most businesses will contend with, a warming world.
Baseball is acutely exposed to climate change, as it is generally played outdoors during the summer. Some of the hotter locales have adapted to this with retractable, domed roofs, like the Arizona Diamondbacks. Others have added sun blocking roofs and large fans. And, the Las Vegas Aviators have even added seats made with breathable material! One solution may be more night games. A noon game in the Nevada heat was not easy. We suspect that teams will adapt to climate change by shifting to even more night games, shifting the start of their games closer to sunset, adding shaded pavilions, and experimenting with new seating materials.
The general business implication is that virtually every business will be forced to adapt to climate change in the 21st century.
20. Safety and the rise of protective netting
Over the course of 14 baseball games in June we observed that almost every ballpark had increased protective netting down the 1st and 3rd base lines. Although the assumption of risk of harm from flying balls and bats is implicit in the attendance of a game, teams have added more protective netting in order to increase safety and reduce the threat of injury. The recent increase in protective netting is emblematic of the wider trend in society toward personal safety and risk reduction. This could be ascribed to American litigiousness, the application of data science to risk, a post 9-11 focus on personal safety, or all of the above. But, it is a trend. The counter-trend is the rise of explicitly violent combat sports like Ultimate Fighting Challenge (UFC) and MMA.
21. Innovation – especially at the edges, in the Minor Leagues and smaller parks
Finally, what we saw over 17 days and 14 ballparks convinced us that the “innovators dilemma” is very real and that innovation is much more likely to be found on the edges, among smaller, more agile firms than among larger, established organizations.
Most of the real innovation in the ballpark experience is being done in the Minor Leagues or in smaller, unaffiliated leagues. These teams have to compete hard for every entertainment dollar they get.
Baseball faces several long-term, existential challenges: (1) an increase in entertainment options, (2) the slow pace of the game relative to other spectator sports, and (3) stagnating youth participation (declining from 16.5% to 14.4% between 2008 and 2019). Major League Baseball is addressing each one of these with sustaining, as opposed to disruptive technologies. Legalized sports betting may give the teams a short-term financial boost, buying it some time. But, instead of reinventing itself for the 21st century, Major League Baseball will almost certainly tinker on the margins. It will do what most market incumbents do. And, if history is any guide, the smaller teams will do the real innovating. The best example of this is the Savannah Bananas, a team that is disrupting the fan experience AND doing the unthinkable, experimenting with the rules. They call these new set of rules “Banana Ball”.
This pattern of experimentation at the edges plays itself out across most industries, and it is our last insight from the Great American Road Trip. If you want to innovate, drive out to the edge and hang with the wild bunch.
Learning by driving around
If you’re a leader of a large organization, most of your direct reports are lying to you. And, most of their direct reports are lying to them. In reaction to this, “management by wandering around” was invented as a way for leaders to better understand the real functioning of the organizations they lead. Instead of sitting in their offices and reading status reports, leaders were urged to wander about their organizations, discovering the business’ strengths and weaknesses along the way.
We have a similar theory – “Learning by driving around”. Yes, leaders should use survey research to understand the needs of their customers, their fans. Yes, leaders should commission many more standing focus groups as feedback loops. And, yes, leaders should simply spend more time exploring the world around them and their customers.
Our road trip convinced us that qualitative research, ad hoc focus groups, ethnographic research, and participant observation are simply invaluable research tools. Advanced quant and deep qual work together.
In recent years corporations have gone to great lengths to develop digital dashboards for leaders, helping to provide executives an operational picture of their enterprise delivered in tidy charts right on their computer screens. That’s fine. Information is power.
But, we are here to tell you that you need to get behind an actual dashboard of a car, light truck or Jeep and explore the world of your customer. It worked for Sam Walton. It will work for you.
Instead of experiencing a filtered reality, we think leaders should spend more time wandering around, more time deeply observing the world they encounter, more time at baseball games, more time out with the crowd.
