A Brand That Never Grows Old
"Opening Day" and "Play Ball" - words that are certainly music to the ears of any baseball fan on this glorious day as baseball is back. It signifies optimism among fans across the nation who hope that this could be their year. Everyone starts out 0-0, a blank slate that will be filled in 162 times across the long drawn-out season that perfectly matches the pace of the game.
Baseball is the ultimate brand relationship - be it with the game itself or your favorite team. It grabs hold of you at a very young age and never relinquishes the connection. It starts with a simple game of catch with a parent, sibling or friends. Talk all you want about connection and engagement in the digital space, it can never replace what is played out across backyards and ball fields. Baseball embodies all things Americana.
As a brand, not much has changed with the game of baseball, and that's a good thing. It's still four balls, three strikes, three outs and nine innings. Sure, games are mostly played at night, last well in excess of three hours and feature endless numbers of TV commercials, but the simplicity and elegance of a great game are played out day in and day out.
Going to a baseball game is so different from any other sport. The sheer beauty of the tapestry of green on the field that you witness when you walk through the tunnel runway never gets old. Beautiful clean white balls and the sound of maple and ash bats rocketing balls to the stands. Time stands still at the ballpark. Some people want to speed up the game. The frequent complaint you hear is, "It's too slow."
Maybe that's what makes baseball endure as a brand. It is essentially the same game that Abner Doubleday invented over a century ago. Faster doesn't always mean better. The pace of the game allows for good old fashioned connection - talking to the person you came to the game with. That's a novel idea - face to face communication.
Think about it. What brand do you get a chance to reconnect with every year - one in which there is optimism and excitement that happens every April? Yes, some teams have better chances than others, but isn't that a microcosm of life.
There is no greater brand loyalty than the affinity for your baseball team. In many categories, brand loyalty is fickle at best. Such is not the case with baseball. Often the team you start rooting for as an impressionable kid is the one that you'll follow for life. One word of caution to the youngsters of today - pick carefully!
Seasons come and go as do players. Many will leave an indelible mark in your memory. You'll remember epic games and playoff wins. For some, you'll be lucky to witness multiple championships. For this Red Sox fan, 2004 was pure magic - worth all the years of heartache.
Like any great brand, baseball keeps you coming back, not just season after season, but night after night. Hope springs eternal on Opening Day. Could this be our year? Few brands have such an emotional attachment on us. Baseball, it never gets old.
Keywords: Baseball, Baseball Opening Day; Baseball - The Brand
I've never been a Yankee fan, never will. (Will reserve a discussion regarding my loyalty to the tragedy more commonly called the Mets for another time.) That said, I will always remember walking through Washington Square Park on a soft October fall evening as game 6 of 1977 World Series was being played in the Bronx. It was, I believe the 8th inning. Reggie Jackson was at the plate. When he homered off of Hough, jaded NYU students, strung out junkies, hot panted hookers, cabbies, businessmen and mimes (Washington Square was knee-deep in white faced mimes that year) all went absolutely @#! NUTS. What a great day to be a baseball fan and a New Yorker.
And let's not forget that baseball is one of the few things that actually work very, very well on radio. In the car, at the beach, working in the garden or sitting on the porch slapping mosquitos - baseball truly is the soundtrack of summer.
Baseball (and I would say in a sense all sports) are indeed both a "brand loyal" and a new and optimitstic re-connect on a yearly basis. Everyone in all sports are sure they are bound for the play-offs, the Super Bowl, or the World Series. The part that is more wonderful about baseball is the association it has for me with the summer. Longer days, more sunlight, and a more lethargic pace, real or imagined, make the summer a more youthful season and one of more joy. Waking up to birds chirping at 4:40 am as opposed to hearing sleet and snow blowing against your window. Looking forward to getting up to play golf at dawn or go fishing as opposed to shoveling a never ending pile of snow. Summer is the abundance of life, and baseball is part of that in most of our minds as well. BYW the Yanks are up 3-2 in the bottom of the 4th....just sayin'
Hey, those "endless commericals" aren't such a bad thing! It's what keeps the world turning. That said, I've always admired the resistance to adorn team unifroms with sponsor logo's. No other global sport has managed that - even the supposedly genteel game of Cricket is 'logoized'. And congrats to all teams who have resisted [how long can it go on?] re-naming the ballpark. Fenway park will always be better than Citi Field. But wait, this just in!! The owners of Red Sox are offering Liverpool FC's famed and hallowed 'Anfield' to sponsors.
Is there any other brand that gets mentioned in people's obituaries? That said, I don't much admire how those who are supposed to be stewards of the brand have managed things in recent years. I get particularly exercised about the late scheduling of the All-Star and Series games. How are you supposed to get kids interested when the biggest games are held after they're in bed?
I hate my Mets: I love my Mets; Let's go Mets!
Dear Met fans, former baseball commish Bart Giamatti could have been thinking of you when he wrote that "baseball is designed to break your heart" (or roughly that). In recent years, I have found a better way for the game to break my heart -- Fantasy Baseball. You spread the pain around and, as the GM of your own team, you have only one person to blame for bad decisions (except you find yourself blaming those guys on the DL for not being in better condition, or some manager for not putting your closer in to get the last out in the 8th inning). In Fantasy, there is a new brand to root for every year, and "if they don't win it's a shame." But as the Brooklyn Bums always said, "wait 'til next year"...when your heart will surely be broken again.
Every baseball team starts out their season with the "brand promise" that this will be their year and their fans buy into this proposition year after year. Most teams will not fulfull on that brand promise. Yet there are those same fans the next season, lining up for tickets, watching and listening to games, buying team gear.
Maybe we give our teams a pass if they don't fulfill on that promise due to nostagia reasons or because we have come to expect it. Either way, the experience of the game - in person at the ballpark, watching on TV, or listening on the radio - generally fulfills on one key brand tenet: time well spent.
I love baseball.
But it's not a Brand. It's a Pastime.
It makes us no promises. It fulfills no needs.
It requires no Sustainable Competitive Advantage.
It has no Personality. It has many.
It may satisfy emotional needs, but it doesn't satisfy material needs.
We seldom pay for it.
It's easy to be Baseball. It's hard to be Charmin.