ALL-STAR GAME : SOUVENIR SALES : A Perfect Game : Ex-Chapman College Student Showed Baseball How to Market Souvenirs

A decade ago, Rick White wrote a master’s thesis on the business of baseball. Today he is one of baseball’s most successful businessmen.

For four years, the former Southern Californian has presided over soaring sales of official baseball memorabilia--everything from traditional caps, pennants and baseball cards to more exotic orange Orioles beaks and Angels air mattresses.

White is president of Major League Baseball Properties, which licenses souvenirs and apparel bearing major league team insignia. The former Chapman College student returned to Orange County on Friday for an annual convention of 350 memorabilia makers, culminating with today’s All-Star game at Anaheim Stadium.

According to sports business observers and competitors, White deserves much of the credit for transforming the memorabilia business from a marginal operation to a major source of revenue and improving Major League Baseball’s financial fortunes in the process.

“There’s been phenomenal growth in the sale of baseball souvenirs, and Rick White has been the main reason,” said Brent Diamond, publisher and editor of Team Licensing magazine, which monitors sale of paraphernalia sponsored by professional sports teams. “He’s the marketing force that’s driven almost all of their recent success.”

Major League Baseball turned a profit for the first time in decades in 1986 and has remained in the black ever since. From 1986 to 1988, league attendance jumped 11.5%, and radio and television revenue increased 33.5%.

But the gains in attendance and broadcast revenues are dwarfed by growth in sales of official baseball merchandise.

In 1986, retail sales of Major League licensed goods totaled $225 million. The figure soared to $700 million in 1988 and is expected to top $1 billion this year. Major League Baseball, including the 26 teams and the commissioner’s office, gets about 4% of that total and then divides it based on an undisclosed formula.

This year’s expanded sales put baseball ahead of the National Football League, which has long dominated the memorabilia market, according to White.

Frank Vuono, senior director of licensing for the NFL, said it is unclear whether Major League Baseball is now the leader. The NFL declines to disclose its souvenir royalty revenue.

“That sort of thing is hard to measure, and we don’t release any figures,” said Vuono. “But Rick has done a tremendous job in centralizing and developing their business . . . and most retailers say we’re about even.”

White, 36, began his career with Major League Baseball after completing a “regression analysis” of baseball salaries for his master’s thesis at Purdue University.

“We figured out that Hank Aaron should earn the most, and he did,” said White, who had been an all-star catcher at La Mirada High School and student body president at Chapman College in Orange. “Sometimes you have to prove the obvious.”

After a short stint as a public relations officer for baseball’s umbrella organization and then as an assistant branch manager with Carnation Co., White went back to work for Major League Baseball in 1979. He was assigned to Major League Promotions, the forerunner of Major League Baseball Properties.

“Things were somewhat sloppily run then,” said White. “Commissions varied radically, and the league, the teams and everybody else marketed the goods. (Then baseball commissioner) Bowie Kuhn didn’t want to clog up the game with a lot of commercialism.”

When Peter Ueberroth took over as commissioner in 1984, however, things changed. Under pressure from both players and owners, Ueberroth centralized souvenir sales within Major League Baseball.

Paraphernalia sales had been paired with an unprofitable media operation, which was spun off as Phoenix Communications in 1985. A former Time Inc. executive, Charlie Bear, was hired as a consultant for the new souvenir sales group, and an overall marketing plan was adopted.

“We found the money teams were making (on memorabilia), even after a World Series, wouldn’t even pay for a utility infielder,” White said. “Peter allowed us to make a change. He didn’t tell us how to do anything but said we had to create some sort of strategy.”

Bear and White worked together to forge a marketing plan, which was designed to follow the NFL strategy of centralized sales, publicity and trademark enforcement.

“They got a late start and learned from the NFL’s mistakes,” said Diamond at Team Licensing magazine. “They’ve seen by far the most growth, largely because Rick put together a good marketing program.”

Under the new plan, Major League Baseball assumed responsibility for stopping counterfeit goods. When the program began back in 1986, shipments of unlicensed foreign-made baseball products were turned back at the borders, and retailers were assured that they would not be undersold by makers of inferior products who cut separate deals with team owners.

Around the same time, Major League Baseball also dumped 25% of its former licensees and began seeking more established producers.

In the last 2 1/2 years, the organization has spent more than $6 million to police and prosecute counterfeiters.

“We want to establish ourselves as an upper-end producer,” White said. “So we are opening our own stores and are working with major department stores.”

As part of that move, the league last year began sponsoring the Diamond collection of authentic major league style apparel and the Cooperstown collection of historically accurate uniforms.

Last year the league opened five Major League souvenir and apparel stores, in San Diego, Oakland, New York, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee. It plans to open two more by the end of 1989--one in Brea and one in Boston. The stores sell parkas, towels, sheets and even wallpaper, as well as more traditional items.

In the future, White said, Major League Baseball Properties will begin more joint ventures with players and increased marketing of such collectibles as baseball cards and old jerseys.

Asked if anything could dampen demand for Major League-sponsored goods, White mentioned counterfeiting, over-saturation of the market, and, of course, a players’ strike.

“We don’t play baseball, we don’t make money,” he said. “It’s that simple.”