Sports Public Relation Plan

"If I were commissioner,” he continued. “I would be petrified that 6- to 14-year-olds in America consider Messi, Ronaldo, LeBron, Curry, and Ninja the Fortnite player more famous than any baseball player on earth."

Overall the league appears to be healthy: metrics are up for sponsorship, revenue, ratings and merchandise sales. Questions and concerns, however, remain. Attendance is down 4 percent. The average age of the MLB television viewer is 57 (Barron’s). The league’s social media following lags behind other major leagues. Can MLB win market share “amid a saturated entertainment landscape?” Can a sport in which fan affinity is focused on team over individual, and in which tradition trumps individual flair, retain cultural relevance in an era of short attention spans and the personal brand? Can the league survive a fast-paced digital age, where consumers demand constant action and more interaction? MLB stars are less familiar to casual fans as compared to stars in the NBA and NFL. Can the league find a way to market these personalities and engage new audiences? You couldn’t pick baseball’s biggest star, Mike Trout of the California Angels, out of a lineup. He doesn’t engage in outward marketing like, say, Lebron or Odell Beckham Jr. Same with the NY Yankees’ Aaron Judge and the majority of baseball’s stars.

MLB’s apparent inability to market itself effectively has been criticized and critiqued. DAZN’s Adnan Virk said that the league should look to “take a page from the NBA’s playbook,” when planning to promote the sport – and its stars. For example, MLB should embrace the next generation of fans, catering to the way they consume content. MLB has one of the strictest social media policies of any major sports league, only allowing teams to post two highlights per game on social media and it does not allow fans or other groups to post video content on their own accounts. This policy is considered harmful to growth of the game, and diminishes fan-player connections.

Players past and present, including the Chicago Cubs’ Kris Bryant, believe the league should do more to “showcase its players” and take advantage of “selling Wheaties, producing online content and behind-the-scenes-stuff.” Promoting the sport and its players outside their own markets is a big step towards fans experiencing the game as more than a regional, team passion. Can greater fan engagement through social media help drive attendance, ratings, merchandise sales, reach younger audiences, and eliminate barriers between the fans and the stars?

We’ll see…

Commissioner Rob Manfred has hired you as the new head of Public Relations for the League. “This is a business,” Manfred reminds you. And he lays out three primary business objectives:

1. Promote the star players

2. Improve fan-player interaction

3. Make MLB’s content the “must have” social currency to keep current fans and reach new ones

Looking at the four stages of “Conceptualizing the Public Relations Plan”…

EVIRONMENT >

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES >

PUBLIC RELATIONS OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES >

PUBLIC RELATIONS PROGRAMS >

… we referenced in class (see Seitel, The Practice of Public Relations, p. 86-87), please conceptualize the last two stages of a Public Relations plan for the MLB by fulfilling the following steps:

1. Create (3) PR Objectives and briefly explain how each objective ties to a Business objective

2. Identify (3-5) PR Strategies (including at least (1) Community Relations strategy) and briefly explain how each strategy ties to achieving the PR Objective

3. Identify (4-5) PR Program Elements/”Tactics” (including at least (1) Community Relations tactic) (see list of “implementation” areas in Seitel p. 91-93) that would serve your PR strategies/objectives and explain how. If you have a specific program idea – that’s great! – but important to identify why this kind of implementation area is necessary to achieve your objectives.

4. For each of the above categories (steps 1-3), please list 1-2 key research questions you’d like answered to execute this plan more effectively.

Answers can be in bulleted form; this assignment does not require essay format. Please complete in no more than 5 pages. This assignment is worth 10 points of your total 100-point grade. Grades will be determined based on how completely you answer the questions, clarity, logic and relevant application of content and principals we have gone over in class and your readings.

Resource samples:

The State of Baseball as 2019 Season Begins