MLB: Drive To Survive in a Aggressive Market

No one requested me, however given the traits in attendance, the common age of MLB followers, and the fluctuations in rankings over the previous few years, together with the dwindling web page area and airtime given to baseball by mainstream media shops relative to their protection of different sports, it appears plain that baseball not holds the “America’s Pastime” title, however slightly the significantly much less catchy moniker: “America’s Third or Maybe Fourth Favorite Sport.” The battle for shoppers’ time and a focus wages on, and whereas baseball began within the pole place, it scraped the wall just a few instances and now sits a lap down.

The leisure market is oversaturated. Viewers simply scroll by infinite choices and click on away from any choice that doesn’t instantly spark pleasure. “The only game in town” advertising technique merely not suffices. So once more, whereas nobody requested me, I’m right here to supply some unsolicited recommendation to MLB on how you can higher promote their sport and the characters, settings, and themes that make up its tales. In different phrases, I’d like to enhance their drive to outlive inside a aggressive market.

This article is the primary of a three-part sequence. This version will present an outline of other types of supplemental content material the league would possibly use to entice new viewers and the potential advantages such content material yields. Part II will discover the specifics of how you can make supplementary content material efficient, whereas Part III will shift the angle to deal with advertising methods for particular person gamers in any respect ranges of baseball.

[Extreme Russell Wilson Voice] FanGraphs Nation, Let’s Ride! (Consider this an instance of how to not market your self.)

When we consider MLB content material and the media rights offers the league indicators to promote its content material, we naturally consider the on-field product. The precise video games are what ESPN, Fox, and Turner Broadcasting agreed to pay 12 billion with a “b” {dollars} to solely air on their platforms over seven years beginning in 2022. The offers additionally embody the choice for pre and submit sport exhibits throughout the playoffs and studio exhibits like Baseball Tonight, however largely they need the video games.

ESPN, Fox, and Turner have sewn themselves into the material of baseball broadcasting. They’ve stitched their brand into MLB’s underwear, so everybody is aware of they personal these TV rights in case of a health club class locker room mixup. Nevertheless, as the best way we watch tv continues to evolve, and on-demand streaming occupies a bigger and bigger market share, these within the broadcast enterprise see the worth in sports as one of many few merchandise nonetheless consumed reside.

As we all know, the nationwide cable networks don’t broadcast each sport for each workforce, however slightly choose a subset of video games to characteristic. The different entities claiming broadcast rights are regional sports networks (RSNs) who negotiate these rights with particular person groups. However, the RSN enterprise mannequin turns into extra precarious by the day, leaving MLB needing to pivot to a short-term answer whereas they try to modernize how they broadcast video games sooner or later.

Aside from the mainstay broadcast companions, others are searching for to seize a patch of market share within the sports area. Apple TV+ started providing Friday Night Baseball in 2022 (it went actually easily — nobody took challenge with it by any means), and now owns the unique rights to MLS. Amazon Prime took over Thursday Night Football, affording it the privilege of airing Colts/Broncos each single week for some motive (I’m listening to in my earpiece it wasn’t truly Colts/Broncos each week, it solely felt prefer it). NBC ported components of the Olympics over to Peacock. I’ve to subscribe to one thing referred to as Fubo if I wish to watch the Pac-12 Network, and I don’t know in case you’ve heard, however Hulu has reside sports.

The silence from one explicit streaming service with respect to reside sports is as deafening because the drumbeats that pulse by your audio system each time you open the app. Netflix, the flagship streamer, doesn’t supply Tuesday Night Tennis, or Water Sports Wednesday, or Saturday Morning Slamball. (Although, I might completely watch Saturday Morning Slamball.) That doesn’t imply they don’t see worth in sports, however slightly that they select to pursue it otherwise.

Many on the web have argued that actuality exhibits comparable to The Bachelor, Project Runway, and Top Chef are sports, and I’ve lengthy held that the reverse can also be true: sports are actuality TV. Netflix agrees with me, however they took it a step additional and began making actuality exhibits concerning the actuality present that’s sports. They mentioned to themselves, “Sports are basically a reality show already, let’s just shove it into the same format as Selling Sunset and put it out as supplementary viewing.” (To be clear, I don’t sit-in on content material brainstorming conferences at Netflix, however I assume that is the way it went down.)

Thus, in March of 2019, Formula 1: Drive to Survive debuted on Netflix, highlighting the most important storylines, characters, and settings from the 2018 season, and arriving simply in time for the checkered flag to wave on the primary race of the 2019 season. Around the identical time, ESPN signed a deal to broadcast Formula 1 races for $5 million per 12 months from 2019-2022. Starting in 2023, with three whole seasons of Drive to Survive out there on Netflix, ESPN gained a bidding battle to signal a brand new rights cope with F1, now paying a minimal of $75 million yearly to hold races. Meanwhile, viewership has greater than doubled, going from round half 1,000,000 viewers per race in 2017 and 2018 to 1.2 million viewers per race in 2022. Attendance at U.S. races additionally doubled, main F1 so as to add extra U.S. races to the schedule this coming season. All-in-all, the present paid dividends for Liberty Media, the entity that owns Formula 1 and likewise occurs to personal the Atlanta Braves.

The guess on unique sports content material, slightly than reside sporting occasions, labored out for Netflix as nicely. Season 3 of Drive to Survive was the seventh-most watched present on the platform throughout its debut month, whereas season 4 of the sequence was the most watched present globally on Netflix just a few days after its launch (season 5 had the misfortune of dropping the identical day as season 3 of Outer Banks, which put a stranglehold on the highest spot, however it nonetheless checks in at thirty first in reputation amongst TV choices on the platform for 2023).

Netflix felt ok concerning the present’s idea to supply a golf model of the sequence entitled Full Swing, which debuted this 12 months. It looks as if an enormous missed alternative to not simply name it PGA: Drive to Survive, since y’know driving applies to golf too, however as ever, nobody requested me. Coincidentally, MLB: Drive to Survive works properly as nicely, and in the event that they don’t wish to find yourself as irrelevant as Thom Brennaman after Nick Castellanos drove a ball to deep left subject, they need to possibly take into account a docu-series as an choice.

(Netflix additionally made an iteration of the present that focuses on tennis and has a biking version in manufacturing, however I’m not as satisfied I could make these work with my give-them-all-the-same-title joke, so we’re going to disregard them.)

F1 and Netflix skilled optimistic progress in all of the methods MLB is presently shrinking. Obviously correlation isn’t causation, however in accordance with a 2022 survey carried out by Morning Consult, 53% of U.S. F1 followers say Drive to Survive influenced their fandom, so this isn’t merely happenstance. Since MLB is already within the strategy of transitioning from the RSN mannequin by way of the way it broadcasts the precise video games (which can probably embody a lack of income not less than within the short-term whereas it navigates the very best technique for monetizing à la carte streaming), why not add a brand new media income stream by taking a web page from the Netflix playbook and working with some unique, narrative content material? The payout for MLB wouldn’t embody the doubled attendance and a 15-times spike to their media rights valuation loved by F1 given the variations in circumstances surrounding the 2 sports, however extra on that in Part II.

Drive to Survive isn’t the one sort of sports docu-series designed to spark curiosity in a particular league or workforce. The HBO sequence Hard Knocks goes inside coaching camp for a distinct NFL workforce every year and has turn into a ceremonial begin to the season for a lot of NFL followers; it not too long ago expanded to incorporate an in-season spinoff as nicely.

Furthermore, near-real-time docu-series like Drive to Survive and Hard Knocks are just one sort of complementary content material amongst an entire subject of choices. A documentary needn’t solely deal with knowledgeable league for the league to learn. Last Chance U paperwork soccer and basketball on the junior school stage, highlighting the positives these sports carry to the world even for non-star athletes and their households. The sequence isn’t a direct business for the NBA or the NFL, however it generates the sort of optimistic vibes round every sport that leagues profit from as they try to counterbalance their poor monitor data on participant security, office misconduct, and systemic racism.

Of course, the basic strategy to documentary storytelling takes on tales of yore, the place the value-add lies in bringing to life scenes buried deep within the sport’s historical past which have beforehand been left both forgotten or untold. Baseball has this base pretty nicely lined (The Battered Bastards of Baseball and No No: a Dockumentary are two of my private faves). In latest years although, the leisure trade as an entire has found out how a lot most people likes getting punched within the feels by nostalgia. Since youth is wasted on the younger, we like to return and relive it as adults. Every mildly profitable present from the ‘80s and ‘90s now will get a remake, reboot, or spinoff.

Following the development, docuseries comparable to The Last Dance and dramas comparable to Winning Time carry followers again to the tales that hooked them on the game within the first place. “The History of the Seattle Mariners by Secret Base” on YouTube lights up the a part of my mind the place the nice and cozy summer season reminiscences of childhood reside, however think about in the event that they’d had the price range and entry handy Randy Johnson or Ken Griffey Jr. an iPad and allow them to react to outdated highlights. Johnson most likely wouldn’t have mentioned a lot, however consider the meme-potential in his facial expressions.

YouTube incorporates a cornucopia of efficient baseball storytelling, which we’ll talk about extra in Part II, however YouTube content material is proscribed in its attain and manufacturing high quality, so tales marketed from the platform have capped potential advantages a lot decrease than content material produced for the most important TV networks and streaming providers. Typically, YouTube shoppers go to the platform looking for area of interest content material particular to their pursuits, slightly than exhibits marketed to the plenty. Just a few sequence, comparable to Hot Ones, have transcended the platform and located their method into mainstream popular culture, however typically, content material searching for to create new followers must go the place the potential new followers exist, not the place the sickos go to dive deeper on their present fandom.

Documentaries apart, the NBA advantages from a number of of its energetic gamers internet hosting podcasts, amongst them The Draymond Green Show, The CJ McCollum Show, and The ETCs with Kevin Durant. Green has even been identified to report a podcast instantly after enjoying in a Finals sport. Imagine Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper hopping behind a mic proper after Game 3 of the 2022 World Series to debate what Harper whispered to Alec Bohm proper earlier than going deep in opposition to Lance McCullers Jr. On the NFL facet, the weekly appearances by Aaron Rodgers on The Pat McAfee Show generate sufficient media buzz to maintain consideration firmly targeted on the game even throughout the offseason. Or if darkness retreats aren’t your factor, the Kelce brothers workforce as much as host a podcast, named in homage to their hometown with an outline dubbing them “Football’s funniest family duo.” (I recognize the alliteration, however that’s a reasonably daring declare given all of the nepotism within the NFL — see additionally: Peyton and Eli Manning, Rob and Rex Ryan, Bill and Steve Belichick, and many others.)

And so as to add to its catalog of behind-the-scenes sports content material, Netflix plans to launch a present this summer season that zooms in on the position of NFL quarterbacks, partially by drawing on audio gathered throughout the 2022-23 season through which Patrick Mahomes, Kirk Cousins, and Marcus Mariota have been all mic’d up for each single sport. MLB has struggled by a number of makes an attempt to generate mic’d up content material that’s compelling with out producing cringe or security considerations, however eradicating the reside ingredient and enhancing collectively the good things after the actual fact could be the successful formulation. A full season recap of Mookie on the mic, or attending to pay attention to catchers conversing with their pitchers between innings, or a sequence on the banter that happens when runners attain first base? Sign me up.

But does the intrigue fashioned whereas watching a docu-series or listening to a podcast at all times translate to extra followers watching video games? Jody Avirgan of the Good Sport podcast says no. “I watch [Hard Knocks] every season. I love it. Full of stakes, full of storylines. But I gave up watching actual NFL football years ago, and no matter how good Hard Knocks is, I’m not finding my way back to the actual games.”

That consequence is actually suboptimal. However, the present itself serves as a income, so individuals who solely watch these exhibits, even when they by no means watch a sport, nonetheless contribute to the underside line. Moreover, it sends extra individuals out into the world to speak concerning the sport with their family and friends and coworkers, which contributes to the kind of popular culture FOMO that attracts extra individuals in. And possibly these non-game-watchers nonetheless purchase and put on merch, or don’t watch throughout the common season, however tune in for the playoffs, since they now have some concept of what’s happening. There are many ranges of latest fandom for MLB to aspire to right here.

A specific stage of F1 fandom that MLB aspires to enhance upon is that of worldwide fandom. On Good Sport, Avirgan interviews Jessica Smetana, a sports journalist and comparatively new Formula 1 fanatic about her journey to F1 fandom. Smetana counts the worldwide nature of F1 as one of many interesting elements, “[T]eams being based in different countries and races being all over the world. It felt like I was simultaneously watching sports, but also maybe a mini travel documentary.”

MLB’s latest efforts to develop its international attain embody video games performed in Australia, Japan, Mexico, and the UK, with extra worldwide video games on the schedule this 12 months in London and Mexico City, and a Paris sport scheduled for 2025. When airing within the United States, Drive to Survive carries the benefit of introducing its viewers to a completely new sport. To seize upon an analogous benefit, a baseball actuality present needn’t air solely in North America, the place most individuals already learn about baseball. Instead the present may turn into a car to succeed in new followers around the globe.

During the WBC, we discovered that roughly half of all Japanese households with a TV tuned in to look at Japan’s quarterfinal sport in opposition to Italy, whereas 61% of households with a TV in Puerto Rico watched their workforce face off with the Dominican Republic. Japan, Puerto Rico and a bunch of different nations have their very own common skilled leagues, however with that stage of enthusiasm for the WBC, maybe the thirst for baseball isn’t absolutely satiated.

One may make related arguments for serving extra MLB content material to nations just like the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Venezuela, however to really replicate F1’s technique, the transfer to be made is getting one of these content material to locations just like the UK, Italy, Israel, and so forth and so forth. Target nations with the present kindling to ignite a firestorm of baseball fandom, however that will nonetheless profit from a splash of lighter fluid to essentially get crackling, maybe by beginning with a Hard Knocks-esque telling of the nationwide groups making ready for the WBC.

Last however not least among the many potential advantages of non-game content material, F1 skilled one necessary lower of their numbers following their Drive to Survive glow up. The common age of a Formula 1 fan dropped from 36 in 2017 to 32 in 2023. As the common age of an MLB fan creeps uncomfortably near the common life expectancy within the U.S., giving youthful followers a present to binge watch with their associates after they compensate for the brand new season of Love is Blind looks like a worthwhile endeavor.

That’s all for Part I! Check again quickly for Part II to learn all about how you can truly make a baseball docu-series and different forms of complementary content material work to draw new followers. In the meantime, be at liberty to make use of the remark part to brainstorm the very best baseball participant/actuality present combo, e.g. Enrique Hernández on America’s Next Top Model or Max Scherzer on Beat Bobby Flay.