Player Lockout Leaves Major League Baseball Promoters in Left Field

Forget the baseball owners. Forget the players. Forget the peanut vendors. Consider, instead, anyone whose unfortunate job it is to promote major league baseball.

Consider them frazzled.

On Monday, talks between the owners--who have locked players out of spring training--and the Major League Players Assn. unraveled faster than a cheap sweater. Now, executives in charge of marketing the 26 ball clubs are wondering if all their planning, which began when the ’89 season ended, is about to hit the showers.

Several teams, such as the Dodgers--who are about to celebrate their centennial year--have many promotions specifically geared for this season. But perhaps nowhere is the marketing dilemma more frustrating than at the all-sports network, ESPN.

In its bid to be taken seriously by sports enthusiasts, the network recently paid about $400 million to broadcast more baseball games over the next four seasons than any other network. To lure advertisers, it has run ads in trade publications that brag: “We’ve got the men advertisers can’t wait to get their mitts on.”

So what does ESPN get for its trouble--and money? It gets beaned.

“I wish we could cry in our beer--at the ballpark,” said Michael Soltys, manager of programming information at ESPN.

The network estimates that it has spent $16 million on television and print advertising to promote the 171 baseball games that it still has every intention of broadcasting this season. But late last week, executives at ESPN finally started to pull back. The network yanked several TV spots that referred to specific spring training games it had planned to air.

“This was to be our crowning moment,” Soltys said. “Getting baseball made us solid. We’ve spent a year preparing our marketing plans. Now, all of a sudden, we have this thing hanging over us.” Meantime, ESPN will continue to air general TV spots that refer to the network as “the new hall of major league baseball.”

For ESPN--and everyone trying to market baseball--the situation is more confusing than a Bert Blyleven curve ball. “It’s like trying to swim up a river without water,” said Bill Knudsen, former vice president of marketing for the Seattle Mariners. “You can bet the teams are all in a heavy hand-holding mode right now, especially with their season ticket holders.”

Many teams treat their biggest season ticket holders to free spring training trips. If that training session is canceled or shortened, these key customers might be disappointed. And if the season is shortened, advertisers who purchase everything from scoreboard space to pages in game programs will have to be compensated for the fact that fewer fans will see their messages.

What messages are the individual teams trying to promote? Pretty much baseball as usual.

“It will be business as usual until we can’t do business,” said Tommy Hawkins, vice president of communications with the Dodgers. “If there have to be changes, we’ll make them and adjust.”

For the Dodgers, the timing could hardly be worse. Virtually every promotion that the Dodgers have planned for 1990 is based on the theme of its team’s 100th year in baseball. All of the team’s promotional giveaways--from caps to balls--feature logos commemorating that.

The Dodgers are ready to sell a centennial year highlight video, but they don’t want to put it on the market when the fans are down on baseball. “We’d like to release it when baseball is on the air,” Hawkins said. “It would be unfortunate to announce its release when baseball is not being played.”

Meanwhile, the California Angels have their share of marketing headaches, too.

The team delayed its planned advertising of season ticket and mail-order sales by about 10 days, said John Hays, senior vice president of marketing. Yet, when the team opened the season ticket sales window last Wednesday at Anaheim Stadium--without advertising--it sold 400 season tickets in less than two hours, he said. In fact, with 17,000 season tickets sold, the Angels have posted their highest advanced season ticket sales ever, Hays said.

“If we had a dog team, we know we’d be in a very different situation,” said Hays, whose team was a contender last season. “We don’t know when the public might become incensed by a long and bitter labor negotiation period. But it hasn’t impacted our sales yet.”

It has, however, greatly affected how Hays does his job. This is the time of year when Hays and his staff give speeches to community groups. People usually ask where the team will finish--but not this year. “The questions aren’t about the team, but whether there will be a baseball season,” said Hays. “The focus is away from the sport of baseball and into the business of baseball. As a marketing guy, I can tell you we’re not comfortable with that.”

Bo Jackson Reaches Out for New AT&T; Campaign

Here we Bo again.

Beginning tonight, Bo Jackson, who plays football for the Los Angeles Raiders and baseball for the Kansas City Royals, will hustle for a new team: AT&T.;

In the TV spots, created by the New York agency Ogilvy & Mather, Jackson--who appears in the “Bo Knows Baseball” ads for Nike--promotes the phone company’s “Reach Out America Plan,” a discount phone service. In the ads, Jackson has the phone in his hand and says, “I’m busy. But I still like to keep in touch with the guys in L.A. And the guys in Kansas City.”

AT&T;, which is trying to attract younger customers and better compete with its long-distance rivals, had to get Nike’s approval for the spot, said David Robertson, advertising director at AT&T.; Why Nike? Well, the spot ends with Jackson repeating a line similar to that used in several Nike ads. “Bo knows long distance.”

Honda Dealers Ad Spoofs Rivalry Within California

Few Southern Californians know it, but we’re being mocked in a TV ad campaign that is being broadcast only in the northern part of the state.

The commercial, created by the San Francisco agency Goodby, Berlin & Silverstein, is for Northern California Honda dealers. The ad, filmed in the Senate chambers in Sacramento, features fictional legislatures from both parts of the state who argue over widening Highway 1. The legislator from the north--who drives a Honda--wants to preserve it. The one from the south--who drives a gas guzzler--wants to widen it into a 10-lane freeway.

“The idea was to draw parallels between people who buy Hondas and the reasons people live in Northern California,” said Jeffrey Goodby, creative director at the agency. “You couldn’t do it in a straight way and have anyone take you seriously.”

The agency promises this will not be the last of its spots that pit California’s north against its south. “This may be the first step in getting our water rights back,” mused Andrew Berlin, co-founder of the firm. “The next spot might show a huge brigade of Hondas taking the water back to the north.”

Perrier Crisis No Watershed for Evian

Many marketing managers say the best time to put pressure on the competition isn’t when they’re up, but when they’re down.

Witness what Sprint did to AT&T; in late January when the phone giant suffered a veritable meltdown of its long-distance service because of software problems. Within a day, Sprint was running ads that touted its own reliability.

Makers of bottled water had such an opportunity last week when it was revealed that the makers of Perrier inadvertently sold some bottles of sparkling water tainted with benzene, a chemical which in large quantities has caused cancer in animals. But the competition isn’t jumping at the chance.

Evian spring water introduced a new ad campaign over the weekend, but it was planned and created months ago. And Evian’s line of sparkling water, Saratoga, also will break a long-planned campaign in a few weeks that will completely avoid Perrier’s problems.

“Sure, we discussed it,” said Maryanne Farrell, senior marketing manager at Evian Waters of France Inc., headquartered in Greenwich, Conn. “But we decided not to capitalize on the situation.” Why not turn the screws on Perrier? “It could happen to anyone,” said Farrell. “We know the shoe could always fall on the other foot.”