Minor League Baseball has hired KEVIN SMITH as Senior Dir of Business Development & Media, ZACK STONE as Manager of Business Development & Media and MEGHAN MADSON as MiLB Enterprises Exec Assistant. This continues a reorganization of the affiliated minors’ business activities and its Project Brand national sponsorship activities under new CMO & Chief Commercial Officer DAVID WRIGHT. Smith has spent much of his business career in Brazil, where he most recently was UFC Sponsorship Dir. He also has worked for SportsMark MGMT Group, ESPN, and Oracle. Stone has prior agency experience with Wasserman, CAA and Octagon, and Madson has been with the Aberdeen (Md.) IronBirds, Hudson Valley (N.Y.) Renegades and Princeton (W.V.) Rays. Each will be based out of MiLB HQ in St. Petersburg, Fla., as Wright is dividing the organization’s commercial and sponsorship activity into four distinct areas covering marketing strategy and research, partnership marketing, media, and business development. “These hires are all important pieces to a much larger puzzle,” Wright said. “We have said repeatedly (we) want to be a progressive leader in this space, and this is going to help us really see through a brand lens and give us some needed experience and skill.”
