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A major restructuring of Minor League Baseball made some new fans among brands, and its future marketing prospects are getting brighter.
In 2021, the minor leagues streamlined from more than 160 teams in 14 leagues over five levels of play to just 120 teams—or four for each of 30 Major League Baseball (MLB) franchises—in 11 leagues at four levels. Instead of operating as an agreement between MLB and individual minor league teams, this extension of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s “One Baseball” initiative created more efficient business practices across the sport by sharing resources—including marketing and sponsorship opportunities—between major league clubs and minor league affiliates.
Kristin Barnett, Minor League Baseball’s senior marketing director, illustrated that idea last fall by replacing the minors’ standalone logo with one more closely resembling MLB’s—complete with four stars representing each level of MLB’s player development system. While she noted that, since her arrival during baseball’s winter meetings in 2022, MLB has been focused on growing all forms of baseball—youth, minors, majors—through its “Baseball Is Something Else” campaign with Wieden+Kennedy, Barnett indicated that the minors’ 120 years of history and relatively new configuration, including a centralized office, present a unique opportunity for growth.
“Minor leagues are really interesting in that we have the storied legacy, which you know if you are a baseball nut,” she said. “But as our remit is to grow the sport by attracting net new fans—particularly more casual fans who might not be as tied into industry publications—it’s really important for us that we have a brand with a clear meaning, that people know what Minor League Baseball stands for, that they know what the brand experience is going to be when they come to the ballpark.”
By “modernizing the nostalgia” of the minors’ visual elements and giving each of its teams toolkits to adapt efforts like the new “Only in MiLB” campaign to their markets, Barnett and her team are offering new ways to sell baseball’s developmental leagues. As it stands, MiLB is the second-most attended professional sports league in North America beyond only MLB. Its footprint covers 70% of the U.S. population—with a third of its franchises existing outside of a major sports market.
Last year, MiLB attendance increased 3.8% to more than 32 million, with per-game attendance reaching its highest average since 2009.
Casey Brett, Major League Baseball’s svp of business development, pointed out that the old minor-league model often required clubs to opt into broader national sponsorships—making them a harder sell. When Nationwide—which formed a partnership with Minor League Baseball in 2019—stayed on after realignment, Brett noted that its Road to the Show team-by-team editorial reports on prospects turned into campaigns utilized by all 120 MiLB teams as well as MLB properties. As MiLB sees more widespread campaigns from national brands like Oatly and T-Mobile—which showcased its balls-and-strikes tracking technology used in the minors at the MLB Futures Game during All-Star Week in Arlington, Texas—its central office and marketers are finding ways to show brands how they can make a major impact across video screens, LED signs and jersey patches nationwide with minor effort.
