Major League Baseball is amplifying its Play Ball youth engagement effort with a new set of ballpark-focused activities scheduled this weekend across the league.
Play Ball Weekend represents a focal point of the Play Ball initiative, designed to boost youth participation in baseball and now in its second season after serving as one of the top priorities of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s inaugural year on the job in 2015.
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Play Ball Weekend will feature bat-and-ball giveaways and MLB players sporting Play Ball T-shirts at batting practice.
Photo by: ALEX TRAUTWIG / MLB PHOTOS
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Planned activities include:
■ A promotional giveaway of more than 300,000 team-branded Play Ball bat-and-ball sets at 15 MLB ballparks.
■ Pregame parades of youth league players and a presence on field during the national anthem.
■ Youth clinics and community events.
■ Postgame running of the bases.
■ MLB players wearing Play Ball T-shirts during batting practice.
■ All uniformed personnel wearing Play Ball patches during the weekend games.
MLB’s Play Ball Weekend efforts also will tie into a program between Little League International and ESPN now in its second year in which local Little League players are featured during “Sunday Night Baseball” national broadcasts and participate in meet-and-greets with MLB players. Sunday’s broadcast involving the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium will include area youth players.
The league also has developed a new version of its Play Ball TV advertising that will promote Play Ball Weekend on its national broadcast partners.
“We’re continuing to really push the message that you don’t need 18 players, an umpire and a chalked field to play this game and engage with baseball, and that there are many forms of play,” said Tony Reagins, MLB senior vice president of youth programs. “As we looked to see what we could do with this program in year two, the clubs came to us with a bunch of ideas that were really fresh.”
The 15 MLB road teams during Play Ball Weekend will hold their own events on various dates when they return to their home markets. Specific dollar figures for the investment into Play Ball Weekend were not disclosed, but the combined value of the various items and broadcast airtime value amount to well into seven figures at minimum.
Play Ball, also involving USA Baseball, debuted last year with non-MLB ballpark oriented community events, a multiplatform marketing campaign, the establishment of PlayBall.org and advertising during game broadcasts.
Little League will leverage MLB’s activities for Play Ball Weekend with a youth participation event in Williamsport, Pa., home of the Little League World Series. Among the planned activities there is a video hitting simulator in which kids can re-create the experience of batting in MLB stadiums.
Youth participation numbers in baseball and softball have declined significantly for many years, and it is not yet certain whether the Play Ball effort has sparked any meaningful reversal, as final enrollment figures among many youth leagues for the 2016 season won’t arrive until later in the summer. But Little League President and CEO Stephen Keener championed the league’s continued focus on the issue, and the National Federation of State High School Associations showed a slight uptick in baseball participation over the prior year during the 2014-15 academic year, the most recent figures available.
“This isn’t going to change overnight, but it’s obviously very clear that youth participation and engagement has been a signature component of what Commissioner Manfred is doing,” Keener said. “We believe there has been significant awareness generated already, and I think we are on the right track.”
