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These days, sports are as much about entertainment as they are about competition<\/a>. Leagues like Banana Ball<\/a> have found success by turning the game into a spectacle, placing less emphasis on the final score and more on ensuring fans leave smiling. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d say if you\u2019re in this industry and you\u2019re not looking at what Jesse Cole<\/a> has created, you\u2019re insane,\u201d Diamond Baseball Holdings (DBH) CEO Peter Freund tells Entrepreneur.<\/em> But that approach isn\u2019t realistic for every league. In most major professional sports, revenue is tied \u2014 at least in part \u2014 to winning. But in the minor leagues, the equation is different.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t measure success by a winning streak,\u201d says Freund. \u201cWe measure it based on the fan experience.\u201d<\/p>\n DBH owns and operates 48 Minor League Baseball clubs, giving it control of more professional<\/a> sports teams than any other organization in the world. Freund\u2019s job isn\u2019t to win championships or chase records; it\u2019s to bring new fans through the gates and keep them coming back.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, the happy fan who\u2019s leaving may not care if their home team lost,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s about the lines being manageable, being greeted at the entrance and having an experience that feels unique<\/a> to them.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the general manager of the Brooklyn Cyclones, Steve Cohen \u2014 not to be confused with New York Mets owner Steve Cohen \u2014 admits the minors are a different ballgame.<\/p>\n \u201cI have nothing to do with the players,\u201d he says. \u201cWhereas at the major league level, that\u2019s what the GM does.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead of making trades and scouting players, Cohen\u2019s day-to-day work looks much more like that of a small-business owner. While the Brooklyn Cyclones are just one of DBH\u2019s 48 clubs, their priorities mirror those across the company\u2019s portfolio: sell tickets, secure sponsors and keep fans coming back.<\/p>\n Unlike Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball isn\u2019t driven by lucrative national television deals. That means teams aren\u2019t beholden to broadcast schedules or commercial breaks, giving them more freedom to focus on the people in the ballpark.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not focused on television, and we\u2019re not pausing for commercials,\u201d Freund says. \u201cWe\u2019re doing it for the individuals who are in the ballpark. If you think about the promotions we run or some of the hyper-local things that we do, that really wouldn\u2019t play on television. It only matters to the fan who\u2019s walking through the gates.\u201d<\/p>\n Year-to-date, in-venue merchandise sales are up double digits, while early-season data show that one in five fans left the ballpark with a souvenir. Total announced attendance and attendance per game have both increased year over year, with gains in both tickets sold and turnstile attendance. Fan satisfaction scores<\/a>, measured by Net Promoter Score (NPS), have also climbed significantly across many DBH clubs.<\/p>\n Just because these teams aren\u2019t on national television doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re not prestigious brands. Some have been fixtures in their communities for more than a century, and in many markets they\u2019re the only professional sports team in town.<\/p>\n \u201cI like to argue that the Portland Sea Dogs are just as famous in New England as any other sports club,\u201d Freund jokes.<\/p>\n That deep local connection gives these teams an outsized role beyond the ballpark. In many communities, the minor league club serves as a cultural cornerstone\u2014and sometimes even one of the area\u2019s largest employers.<\/p>\n Hiring locals is just one of many ways these clubs support their communities<\/a>. That local identity isn\u2019t just a branding advantage \u2014 it\u2019s also a business one. Because these clubs are so deeply woven into their communities, success depends on investing in those communities year-round, not just on game days. The Cyclones, for example, started the High School of Sports Management in Brooklyn, part of the Lafayette Education Complex. <\/p>\n \u201cLafayette is where {baseball legends} Sandy Koufax and Fred Wolpon went,\u201d Cohen shares. \u201cIt has a very steep history of baseball in Brooklyn. So that\u2019s been a program that we were very proud of starting, that\u2019s still going on to this day.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Infusing baseball with education is a consistent theme throughout the Cyclones\u2019 programming. Their mascot, King Henry, makes appearances at local schools where he teaches kids about Jackie Robinson, the first Black player in the MLB, who played for the Brooklyn Dodgers. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s good for the community and good for us because it\u2019s a free program,\u201d Cohen says. \u201cWe and we get to get out there and meet with the students and the teachers and the educators that are in our backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n That community-first philosophy extends across DBH\u2019s portfolio, with consistent success. In Salem, the club\u2019s new Ridge Yaks identity helped drive merchandise sales up more than 25% year over year, while a Hellbender\u2019s Night celebrating one of Southwest Virginia\u2019s most unique native species boosted turnstile attendance by 47% and revenue by 39% over the club\u2019s previous season high. <\/p>\n In Worcester, the WooSox drew a sellout crowd for the inaugural MayeDay Celebrity Softball Classic, raising more than $500,000 for the MayeDay Family Foundation run by Patriots QB Drake Maye and his wife Ann Michael Maye. In Wichita, the Turbo Tubs posted 9% year-over-year attendance growth, sold a record 4,000-plus group tickets for Education Day, reached more than 20,000 students through its largest-ever reading program and generated more than $40,000 in merchandise sales following the launch of the club\u2019s Honkers alternate identity.<\/p>\n Owning 48 professional sports teams isn\u2019t easy \u2014 especially when there\u2019s no blueprint for how to do it. As DBH has grown, Freund says the company has built a regional leadership structure, with executives overseeing clusters of teams across the Northeast, Midwest, Southeast and West, while local general managers continue to run day-to-day operations.<\/p>\n \u201cThese clubs all existed before we brought them together to share best practices,\u201d Freund says. \u201cOur thesis was that, through purchasing power, best-practice sharing and all the things you can do with scale, we\u2019d be better as a collective organization. But the reality is these clubs are still being run locally.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When he says locally, he really means locally. Many of the general managers and staff on the grounds at these clubs grew up in their respective markets, often as fans of the team. <\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe feel like we bring a lot of support, whether it\u2019s on the technology side, the purchasing side, just the innovation side that they may not be able to have had as a one-off team or one-off owner,\u201d says Freund. \u201cBut ultimately, the way we stay on top of it is by having a lot of trust in our local leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\nThe business Of happiness\u00a0<\/h2>\n
A different ballgame\u00a0<\/h2>\n
Home-field advantage\u00a0<\/h2>\n