Baseball Puts Advertisers in a Pickle : Cancellation of ’94 Season Has Firms Seeking Options

The cancellation of the 1994 baseball season has left many advertisers scrambling for scarce commercial time on other programs and may lead some firms to re-evaluate future baseball-related promotions and ads.

“A controversy has been created and it’s something that these corporations would rather not get involved in,” said Alan Friedman, editor of Team Marketing Report, a Chicago-based sports business publication. “It might lead some companies to cut down on advertising because they fear fan reaction next year.”

Baseball owners wrote off the rest of the regular season as well as the playoff games and World Series in October after failing to reach an agreement to end a 34-day players strike.

The cancellation comes at a time when many consumer product companies--such as beer, automobile and movie makers--begin their seasonal fall ad campaigns and introduce new products. Such companies spend about $500 million annually on baseball-related ads, according to the trade publication Advertising Age.

Baseball is a favorite among advertisers seeking a young, male audience. And the World Series typically offers an excitement level and audience size that are hard to match.

“If you are trying to reach a male audience, you are definitely going to buy sports and you are going to buy baseball,” said one Hollywood studio ad executive. “There are other choices, but the market is very tight.”

Advertisers say the strike and truncated season haven’t cost them any lost business, but the financial impact is hard to measure. A Nintendo computer baseball game bearing the name of Seattle Mariner star Ken Griffey Jr., who was trying to break baseball’s single-season home run record, has remained one of the company’s top five sellers.

“On the other hand, we are losing something by not having a nightly (news) feature on Griffey and his run for the record,” said George Harrison, spokesman for Seattle-based Nintendo of America. “We really can’t judge what impact that is.”

The strike actually inspired an ad campaign by Nike. The sports shoe and apparel maker created a series of television commercials featuring lonely fans pitching fast balls into empty seats or performing a one-person “wave” inside a desolate Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. The ads included the phrase “Play ball, please.”

Reebok said it plans to launch a campaign next spring featuring Chicago White Sox hitting star Frank Thomas, who starred in a similar campaign earlier this year for a $100 line of shoes that sold out. Thomas was also chasing Roger Maris’ single-season home run record. But Reebok will look at its options if the strike continues next year, said Dan Hanrahan, vice president of global product marketing.

“We are investing first in Frank but also in baseball,” Hanrahan said. “We are developing alternative plans if baseball is still on strike next spring.”

The only big winner coming out of baseball’s disastrous season could be the Fox television network, which is airing pro football for the first time this year, by boosting ratings and demand for commercial time.

“The people that are watching the baseball games are the same ones that are watching during the football season,” said Andrew Woolf, vice president of World Class Sports, which provides sports stars for commercials and promotional appearances.

Fox Sports spokesman Vince Wladika said there was no evidence yet that baseball advertisers and viewers are turning to the fledgling network’s football offerings. “We are just cautiously optimistic that we could possibly see some” gains, he said.