Baseball Allows Gambling Industry to Make Its Pitch

Baseball, which has dealt harshly with betting for more than a century, is now carefully cultivating a relationship with gambling interests that could fatten its bottom line.

The Sycuan Indians, a tribe that operates a popular casino, earlier this year paid a reported $1.5 million to sponsor the San Diego Padres’ 2000 season. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau is spending $1.5 million to erect signs in major league ballparks, including San Francisco’s new Pacific Bell Park. Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Dodgers and five other big league teams met to discuss the possibility of moving their spring training camps to Las Vegas.

Baseball’s bet on gambling won’t lead to odds being displayed on ballpark scoreboards--not that Las Vegas hasn’t tried. But as casino-style gambling spreads nationwide, sports marketers say gambling-related advertising alliances are likely to grow. That’s because the gaming industry, along with “dot-com” firms and deregulated energy companies, are potentially important sources for cash-hungry baseball franchises.

Professional baseball “has a long and illustrious history of distancing itself from gambling, and, in many cases, appropriately so,” said Ken Stickney, a managing director of Marina del Rey-based Mandalay Sports Enterprises, which owns the Las Vegas Stars, the Padres Triple A farm team. “You really don’t want to do anything that has even a hint of impinging upon the integrity of the game.”

But Stickney also maintains that baseball can’t ignore gambling interests when Americans are lining up to buy state lottery tickets and franchises such as the Detroit Tigers now play a pop fly away from casinos.

Baseball’s affair with gambling is a love-hate relationship. The sport continues to struggle with the ghost of the 1919 Black Sox scandal, in which eight Chicago players allegedly threw World Series games. And as Pete Rose’s lifetime suspension from baseball shows, ill-advised bets can sink a career faster than a hanging curveball.

“With the whole Pete Rose thing, baseball seems to be inconsistent on this issue,” said David Carter of Los Angeles-based Sports Business Group. “What they’re embracing is the inevitability of revenue streams from Indian reservations and gaming institutions becoming increasingly important.”

“But baseball has to be careful how it embraces gambling because it will be sending a mixed message,” Carter said. “As these relationships go forward, you’ll see discussions on what amenities and promotional packages can go into advertising.”

Club executives say they’re not advocating gambling and gaming. Revenue from gambling interests clearly trails advertising fees collected from such ballpark staples as breweries and cola companies.

Kris Rone, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for the Dodgers, characterizes the Las Vegas signage at Dodger Stadium as “destination advertising. . . . We work hard to ensure that we’re not promoting gambling . . . and Las Vegas is very aware of the limitations from major league baseball. They know we’re not going to push the envelope.”

Padres Careful to Make a Clear Distinction

But just as baseball is a game of nuances, so is the wordplay evident in the Sycuan sponsorship.

The tribe is known as a casino operator, but Padres Senior Vice President Mike Dee maintains that “the sponsorship is of the Padres’ season, not the Padres. And the sponsorship is by the Sycuan tribe, not the casino. It’s very clear that the title sponsorship doesn’t refer to the tribe’s casino activities. It’s simply Sycuan.”

Baseball constantly screens messages from advertisers with gambling interests.

Las Vegas will spend $1.5 million this year for signage inside such ballparks as Dodger Stadium, Arizona’s Bank One Ballpark and Pacific Bell Park, but the signage is bereft of dice, cards and showgirls.

“We push as far as we can creatively, but there are definite limits as to what the clubs allow,” said Rob Dondero, vice president of R&R; Partners, which creates advertising for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Las Vegas can use its connections to offer fans overnight packages, but probably no team will embrace a proposal to display odds on ballpark scoreboards along with runs, hits and errors. “We can’t say this is the best place to come and gamble, or that this is your gaming getaway,” Dondero said. “Anything that refers to gaming and gambling is out.”

One recent proposal that failed showed a deck of cards but made no reference to gambling. An ad featuring a double-entendre, “Field 21 Again,” also failed to make the cut. Said Dondero, “There are things we’re not going to be able to do.”

The unique role of Sycuan as sponsor of the Padres’ 2000 season has generated equally guarded messages. Through a separate deal, the Sycuan Casino is allowed signage in Qualcomm Stadium. But when it comes to the season sponsorship, it’s strictly Sycuan--no mention of the card room, off-track betting facility or video poker games appears.

Las Vegas and the Sycuans, whose reservation is 20 miles east of downtown San Diego, are willing to live with the restrictions because baseball fans are a mirror image of their prime demographic target. Adult fans have discretionary spending power, and the fact that they enjoy competition is icing on the cake for an industry built upon risk-taking.

To top it off, Los Angeles and San Francisco also are major feeder markets for Las Vegas. “The majority of our push in California comes during the summer months,” Dondero said, “so baseball fits our traffic patterns perfectly.”

Just as baseball is adamant that the signs for Las Vegas and the Sycuan Casino don’t deal with gambling, Las Vegas argues that its message isn’t aimed at families who attend baseball games. “We never use the ‘f’ word, the family word in our advertising,” Dondero said. “We’re marketing a destination that’s popular with families. But we’re not marketing a family message.”

Harry Taylor, general manager of the Sycuan Casino acknowledges that, “for the next year or so, the casino is what will benefit most from the Padres sponsorship. But our main goal with the Padres is to build name recognition, not promote two-for-one buffets.”

Image is important for the tribe in light of Proposition 1A’s passage earlier this year, Taylor said. The tribe now has increased options when it comes to opening businesses. “We’re trying to promote Sycuan as a good neighbor in San Diego. We’re building a brand, making people aware because we’re going to be going into other businesses.”

Some ballclubs refuse to do business with Las Vegas.

Las Vegas isn’t welcome at Edison International Field in Anaheim, home to Walt Disney Co.’s Anaheim Angels. Dondero acknowledges an obvious culture clash: Gambling doesn’t fit with Mickey Mouse’s image. Marketers also note an equally compelling bottom-line reason: Disney competes fiercely with Las Vegas for consumers’ time and money.

“We pounded on the Dodgers’ door for 10 years,” Dondero said. “But the O’Malley family would say, ‘No, we don’t want any reference to gambling or Vegas in our park.’ Under [Rupert] Murdoch, they’ve been much more open-minded. They don’t really treat us as a necessary evil.”

Las Vegas Message Reaches Farther

Sports marketers describe baseball park advertising as effective, in part because signage remains relatively rare inside most ballparks. “Look at the photo that ran in the Arizona Republic in 1998 when the Diamondbacks opened the season,” Dondero said. “On the first pitch, there’s this big red and blue block with Las Vegas--it was just awesome.”

Las Vegas’ baseball connections also reach 30 Triple A parks, including the home field for the Las Vegas Stars. At minor league parks, Las Vegas promotions have encouraged fans to dress up as Elvis. “Have you ever seen 1,500 Elvises in one place?” Dondero said. “It’s fun and the fans really enjoy it.”

Baseball’s ties with gambling-related marketing partners could warm considerably if ongoing discussions lead to the creation of a Las Vegas-based spring training facility--call it the Dice League--that would take its place alongside the existing Citrus League (Florida) and Cactus League (Arizona).

“Las Vegas presents some very favorable qualities,” said Stickney, whose company hopes to entice several teams, including the Dodgers, to a proposed spring training camp in Las Vegas.

“Just look at the Dodgers. How many more fans would come for spring training if it were in Las Vegas instead of Vero Beach [Fla.]?”

And as Las Vegas’ population continues to mushroom, baseball and the other professional sports one day will have to tackle the obvious issue of locating franchises in the booming town. “It’s going to take a fair amount of finesse by league commissioners to get a deal done,” Carter said.