Marketing Baseball

San Diego Padres have two marketing segments, the B2C segment and the B2B segment. The Padres sell packages to the consumer segment which include a selection of game tickets and also events outside of games as well. The Padres appeal to the emotional ties that consumers have with their team in order to sell these memberships.

The Padres have a feature demographic, the 35-50 white male, so a lot of marketing targets that demo, but they are also looking to get younger in general, as baseball has something of an aging fanbase. When the Padres market to business, it is entirely different. There is no emotional connection, so they must rely on analytics. The Padres have to offer value to their corporate customers. They are selling everything from advertising in the stadium to luxury boxes to the corporate clients.

The marketing environment is challenging, and the Padres are forced to rely on outbound cold calls to initiate deals with the corporate sector. The Padres have deals with beer companies, with health care companies, as some of their major customer categories. They also do business with grocery stores, because those have a tremendous reach in the community, and there is some room to provide mutual benefit.

Meetings the needs of different customer types means that B2B deals are individualistic in nature, whereas B2C service offerings tend to be highly standardized. The marketing environment is challenged, predominantly by economic factors. There is intense competition for marketing dollars and the Padres need to sell to businesses. They have a team of students whose job is to cold call. The new CEO used to run the Padres in the 90s, and has brought back a lot of ideas that worked before.

There have been initiatives to make the in-game experience better, and there is a lot of excitement about the team this year, after some player personnel moves to improve after last year's 770-win season. More than before, technology is a key area for improving the marketing offerings of the Padres. It is a source of competition, both in terms of being a venue for advertising but also something that entertains consumers who they are trying to bring into baseball games.

But technology also provides way to reach out to potential customers as well. The Padres used their enhanced scoreboard capabilities to bring back Arco on a deal worth hundreds of thousands of dollars -- they were able to add new value for Arco and get them back when it looked like they might not resign. Report Focus The report should focus on the B2B side. While some mention should be made on B2C, that is a smaller market, and the service offerings are more standardized.

The B2B operation is complex, starting with the CEO Mike Dean, right down to the sales managers and the call center. The Padres have to tailor each B2B deal for each unique client. The Padres have to compete for this business, as the advertising market is highly competitive, and analytics has become increasingly important. The use of analytics means that the Padres have to provide demonstrable value. The Arco account is a good case study for this.

The Padres looked like they might lose the Arco account, but they were able to recover that with a new scoreboard feature for the company. The report should focus on some of the changes that have been made within the organization of late. The team was not very good last year, and it can be difficult to compete with all of the free natural attractions of San Diego. The CEO has made renewal of the team a priority, because this will help sell tickets and sponsors.

It is worth taking a time to explore the way that on-field performance, the consumer fan base and the business community are all linked. There needs to be a total vision from the top down that outlines how the Padres are going to earn their revenue. Business clients are the major revenue source, and some examples can illustrate how creative that the Padres need to be in order to attract their business. Distribution Channels The ballpark is a primary distribution channel for the Padres.

Each game is an event, and there were a total of 2.195 million people in the stadium last year, for an average of 27,103 each game. These people, and the people watching on television, are the product that is being sold, and the distribution channel is therefore the stadium. In that respect, the Padres have the opportunity for a lot of creativity. For example, the amount of time that people spend in the stadium is important, because as that increases, so, too does spending.

The stadium experience has signs, the scoreboard, and concessions all as venues, as well as the merch shops. So there are a number of ways to reach into the wallets of attendees, and there are a number of ways that the corporate clients can make an impression on the attendees as well. There are numerous sponsorships that pop up over the course of the game. Wherever there are eyeballs, there is an opportunity for the Padres to market their fans to businesses. The team works with the business clients.