Baseball Fans to See Pitch With Corporate Spin

Fernando Valenzuela is wearing an advertisement on his sleeve this season--and so is just about every other major league baseball player. But Peter V. Ueberroth doesn’t mind.

In fact, the commissioner of major league baseball has been chasing down commercial sponsors just as a center fielder chases line drives. He pulled in Rawlings Sporting Goods this year, but at a price. The St. Louis-based sports equipment maker has slapped its name onto hundreds of uniform shirt-sleeves.

With that move, on-the-field advertising has finally weaseled its way into major league baseball. Until now, corporate advertising at stadiums has been limited mostly to scoreboards, concourses and the outfield fences. But these ads--2-inch-wide Rawlings logos--are on player uniforms. So far, only the shirt-sleeves have been sold out.

Perhaps resin bags will go next.

The sew-on commercial patches are being worn by ballplayers on all but three major league baseball clubs. Indeed, for the privilege of supplying uniforms to the American and National league teams, Rawlings will pay an estimated $1 million to major league baseball. If a slow-motion television camera happens to focus on the Rawlings patch, you won’t hear the company’s executives complain.

For years, major league baseball lagged far behind sports like basketball and football in drumming up corporate sponsorships. “Baseball was digging its own grave,” said Philip Maher, editor of Sports Marketing News. “Like the other sports, it had to do something to get the fans excited beyond the game itself.” As a result, corporate sponsors now underwrite everything from All-Star Game balloting to ballgame giveaways such as hats, mitts and beach towels.

“We’re kinda’ the last ones to get into it,” said Rubenstein, executive vice president of marketing for major league baseball. After Ueberroth was named commissioner two years ago, “he began treating baseball like a business,” Rubenstein said. Ueberroth quickly signed up multimillion-dollar sponsors like Chevrolet, which supplies cars to teams; Equitable Life Insurance Co., which sponsors Old Timers Games, and International Business Machines, which underwrites free tickets to good students.

That same search for corporate sponsors has filtered down to the individual ballclubs. Among them:

- The California Angels will hand out sun visors to fans at today’s opening game--the first time the opener has featured a freebie. Sponsors: Polaroid and Thrifty Drug.

- The Los Angeles Dodgers learned that their most popular giveaway last year was ball gloves, so they will try to triple the results this year by handing out mitts on three consecutive nights. Sponsor: Boys Market.

- The San Diego Padres discovered that painters’ caps with Padres logos were among the top selling concessions last year, so the Padres will host a painter’s cap night this year and hand out some 50,000 caps. Sponsor: Frazee Paint Inc.

Other clubs are following suit. The Chicago Cubs, for example, commissioned the Beach Boys to record a special song for the team, “Here Come the Cubs,” to the tune of the popular hit, “Barbara Ann.” The Cleveland Indians--who have nearly 80,000 seats to fill each game--will offer various giveaways during every weekend home game this season. And even the New York Mets, last year’s world champions, have increased the number of their games with giveaways this year by nearly 20%.

These freebies have become essential, said Sports Marketing News’ Maher. “No team can count on winning,” said Maher. “You have to presume that you’ll lose and figure another way to fill up seats.”

But corporate marketing campaigns don’t always come up winners. After a $5-million investment last year, Arby’s dropped its baseball sponsorship. Last season Arby’s offered prizes to customers who correctly predicted baseball’s top RBI producers. But this season, “we think our money is better spent on a local level,” said Melinda Ennis, Arby’s director of sales promotion.

“It’s hard to say no to any promotion,” said John W. Hays, senior vice president of marketing for the Angels. Among the Angels’ most peculiar giveaways is one that sponsor Oscar Mayer will hand out at the Big A later this season: seat cushions shaped like hot dog packages.

Vons Goes With JWT; Lucky Still Searching

In the supermarket shuffle, one chain has finally selected a new ad agency.

Vons has awarded its $14-million account to J. Walter Thompson’s West Coast office--pushing the agency’s annual billings over the $140-million mark. Thompson has not carried a supermarket account in nearly three decades. Don’t look for any major changes in the More Store’s current ad campaign, said James K. Agnew, executive vice president at the ad agency. “Vons has gained its leadership role by doing the right thing,” he said. “But we hope we can embellish on that.”

A loser in the chase for the Vons account, Los Angeles-based Admarketing Inc., still managed to land another big customer last week. It picked up the multimillion dollar account at Home Club Inc., according to Jack Roth, president of Admarketing. Word is, the Fullerton-based membership department store has big growth plans and wants to vastly increase its exposure. “As the company grows, our advertising must grow,” said Herb Zarkin, president of Home Club.

Lucky Stores, meanwhile, has yet to name a new ad agency. Officials there say the announcement won’t come for a few more weeks--and the company is still talking with agencies. This has executives at the West Coast office of Grey Advertising edgy, since Grey dumped the Vons account last month with every intention of picking up Lucky’s business.

Diocese Sends Easter Plea Via Print, Radio

The Archdiocese of New York is putting some of its advertising eggs in an Easter basket.

Throughout the New York area--on subway and bus posters and even across the giant Spectacolor sign at Times Square--the Archdiocese is urging Catholics to “Come home at Easter time.” The radio and print campaign--in English, Spanish and Italian--will run through Easter week. One ad, created by the New York agency Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn, advises, “It’s never too late to rejoin the flock.”

L.A. Shop Will Create Ads for Ethnic Markets

In a bid to better reach California’s ethnic markets, the California State Lottery last week awarded a two-year, $10-million advertising contract to the Los Angeles advertising agency Casanova Pendrill Publicidad Inc. The firm--which will see its annual billings double--will create advertising to reach the Latino, Asian and black markets. “We will use very different campaigns to reach each group,” said Paul Casanova, president. He would not discuss specifics.

Casanova, who specializes in Latino advertising, will subcontract work to one of Chicago’s largest black-owned ad firms, Burrell Advertising, and a Los Angeles firm that specializes in the Asian market, Pacific Rim Advertising.

Ad Hall of Fame Honors 4 of Its Best

Just as baseball, football and even rock ‘n roll have their halls of fame, the ad community also has its spot for the best. And last week, at a ceremony in New York attended by nearly 600 advertising executives, the Advertising Hall of Fame--sponsored by the American Advertising Federation--named four new members: Carl W. Nichols, chairman emeritus of the New York ad agency Cunningham & Walsh Inc.; Raymond J. Petersen, executive vice president of Hearst Magazines, and two deceased executives who played a major role in the advertising business over the years: Robert W. Woodruff, former chairman of Coca-Cola Co., and Arthur C. Nielsen Sr., founder of A. C. Nielsen Co., the television ratings research giant.