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Leagues and Governing Bodies

The Anonymous All-Stars

Baseball has an enviable list of elite young players but no household names. An inside look at the game’s problem, and how it may be changing.

The faces of Major League Baseball’s top players were impossible to miss last week around Washington, D.C., at the All-Star Game. The images adorned event signs around town, most notably in a collection of banners in Freedom Plaza depicting each player on the American and National League squads.

Fans couldn’t even check into one of the main All-Star Game hotels without oversized visages of stars such as Angels outfielder Mike Trout or Astros second baseman Jose Altuve smiling at them from behind the front desk.

That level of player imagery was unprecedented for an All-Star Game, veering away from just the use of a primary event logo, and marked MLB’s latest effort to promote its best talent.

It also comes as baseball is amid a season in which attendance and national TV ratings are down and much attention has been paid to ways in which the on-field product can be improved to attract fans.

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Still, last season MLB enjoyed its 15th consecutive year of revenue growth, crowned a different World Series champion for the 17th straight year and can boast an enviable collection of young talent in major markets. Yet when it comes to the national and international prominence of baseball’s top players, the sport by many measures falls behind not only basketball and football but also soccer, tennis and golf. For example:

For the second straight year, not a single baseball player was included in ESPN’s World Fame 100, its annual ranking of the 100 biggest names in sports using data from player endorsements, social media followings and Google searches. 

No active MLB players were among the top 100 athletes of the past year according to an analysis of social media data by measurement firm Hookit.    

No young MLB players had a strong enough brand — measured by social media followers and engagement as well as search results and news stories — to make the recently released top 25 under 25 according to Charge, a sports and entertainment marketing agency. 

With MLB’s attendance down 6 percent at the All-Star break — marking the biggest year-over-year drop since 2009 — viewership on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” down 8 percent and several teams engaged in multiyear rebuilding efforts, the lack of a megawatt global star to help draw in fans is all the more noticeable.

And while complaining about baseball has been around nearly as long as baseball itself, the critiques surrounding why the continued greatness of players like Trout, Bryce Harper and Manny Machado isn’t more celebrated have only grown louder.

“It’s not only about what MLB is doing about marketing and promoting its players, but it’s the players themselves,” said Henry Schafer, Q Scores executive vice president. “They’re just not out there a lot nationally, and when you do see them, it’s often still strictly within a baseball context and not towards a general audience. There’s no question athletes in the other sports have been more aggressive in promoting themselves.”

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It wasn’t always like this for baseball. For large swaths of the sport’s history, stars such as Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle were the most popular athletes in the country and took advantage of a wide array of endorsement opportunities. Reggie Jackson had a candy bar named after him in the 1970s. Ken Griffey Jr. helped popularize the backward hat as a fashion statement in the ’90s, and Derek Jeter commercials were everywhere as he neared retirement in 2014. 

Former players often remain popular, perhaps too much so for baseball’s own good. Q Scores, a measurement firm that evaluates the consumer appeal of personalities, has found that retired MLB players such as David Ortiz, Cal Ripken Jr. and Mariano Rivera have higher scores than any current player. At last week’s All-Star Game Mastercard debuted a national campaign featuring former on-field rivals Ortiz and Alex Rodriguez.

“We’re seeing many of these retired stars still in a lot of demand,” Schafer said. “There’s a resonance they still have with a lot of fans.”

It’s also true that baseball’s migration toward a more localized and team-centric fan appeal, fueled in part by the sport’s expansive presence on regional sports networks, has shifted the sport away from the national profile it had, allowing other sports and athletes to grab a greater share of the spotlight. 

“LeBron [James] has a national appeal and you look at what he’s done: started in Cleveland, went to Miami, back to Cleveland, and now to L.A. Through all that, people are LeBron fans,” said Reid Ryan, Houston Astros president of business operations. “In baseball, it’s different. People are Cubs fans. Or they’re Yankees fans, or they’re Boston fans or whatever. It’s very much team-specific.”

Baseball’s schedule also serves as something of a double-edged sword. Its players are on TV every day for more than eight months from spring training through the World Series, but being at the ballpark or traveling almost every day limits the chances for them to participate in many marketing and endorsement endeavors.

“The daily grind of the season speaks for itself,” said Chris Park, MLB executive vice president of product and marketing. “There is still a dimension there, though, that gives us an opportunity for players to have a daily platform and a daily voice.” 

Commissioner Rob Manfred, with Astros pitcher Gerrit Cole last week, said the players have to be willing to do their part to become more noticeable.getty images

MLB’s competitive balance presents a similar contrast. Twenty-seven of the league’s 30 teams have reached the postseason sometime in the last decade and eight different teams have won the last 10 World Series. But that extreme competitive balance has also prevented the same kind of dynasties that have attracted fans in other sports. 

LeBron James’ image has been enhanced in no small part by his eight consecutive trips to the NBA Finals. The same goes for Tom Brady’s eight Super Bowl appearances quarterbacking the New England Patriots. 

Many of baseball’s top current players haven’t had anything near that level of on-field success, especially in the championship round. The only active player to have participated in more than three World Series is Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, with four. 

Trout, the 26-year-old Angels outfielder widely hailed as baseball’s best current player, has been in the playoffs just once, in 2014 when the Angels were swept in the first round by Kansas City and he collected just one hit in 12 at-bats. Nationals outfielder Bryce Harper, 25, has been to the postseason on four separate occasions, but he, too, has yet to win a playoff series. Machado, the shortstop who could be in line for the biggest free agency payday in baseball history this winter (see sidebar, Page 21), has been in barely more postseason games (seven) than All-Star Games (four).

“It makes a huge difference. The postseason brings in tens of millions of casual fans,” said Marc Ganis, president of Chicago-based consultancy SportsCorp Ltd.

But player interest and participation in off-field marketing also has been an issue for the league and is well-known by everyone around the game. Trout has turned down opportunities, reportedly including a “60 Minutes” profile, and Commissioner Rob Manfred said last week, “If he wants to engage and be more active in [this] area, we could help him make his brand really, really big.” 

Trout’s star is further dimmed by playing in Anaheim, where many of his games are on too late for East Coast viewers. His reserved personality hasn’t endeared him to advertisers the way his elite play, including two AL MVP Awards, might suggest.

“I try to do as much as I can, but keep it to a point where I can still play baseball,” Trout said. “You want to get out there, but you have to pick and choose.” 

Machado sounded a similarly humble note while downplaying talk of his own growing star power. “I just go out there and play,” he said. “I let what I do on the field lead to everything else. As long as I can play and I’m healthy, enjoying myself every day, that’s all that matters to me.”

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Despite the various impediments, the league and the MLB Players Association know they must find a solution. 

“We have fallen short collectively,” said MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark. “There are more opportunities to take advantage of.”

During his state-of-the-game address last week, Manfred acknowledged the frequency of the topic and said, “Player marketing requires one thing for sure: the player. You cannot market a player passively. You need people to engage with those to whom you are trying to market.”

MLB and the union have taken a more proactive approach to the problem. Park, promoted last year to a new role that includes oversight of the league’s global marketing and social media content, pointed to a three-pronged strategy that includes a heightened emphasis on creating and surfacing content on platforms such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook; a pursuit of new broadcast elements such as expanded on-field miking of players; and the creation of new platforms such as Players Weekend, a joint effort with the MLBPA where players enjoy wide latitude to customize their uniforms compared to normal rules that was well-received by players and fans.

Hometown hero Bryce Harper electrified the D.C. crowd —and the nation — by winning the Home Run Derby.getty images

“[Manfred’s] strategic focus is moving away from top-down, large-scale, methodical, slower-moving programming to more nimble, day-to-day, resourceful pursuit of chances to connect with fans and amplify the compelling stories of players,” Park said. “That obviously means a lot more social conversations and much faster-moving initiatives.”

Park’s promotion was part of a series of organizational moves by Manfred that have sought to streamline MLB’s marketing activities and remove prior cultural and structural divides between the commissioner’s office and MLB Advanced Media.

That push toward more real-time marketing endeavors extends to many of the league’s sponsors and licensees. Topps, which recently extended its exclusive relationship with the league through 2025, has reinvigorated its business through the 2016 introduction of its Topps Now on-demand product, which offers commemorative cards on the prior day’s top happenings in MLB that remain on sale for just 24 hours. 

That line of business over the past three seasons has been burnished by a wide array of new MLB stars, including Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts and Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant, as well as rookies such as Angels outfielder/pitcher Shohei Ohtani. The company has also boosted activation plans for next month’s National Baseball Card Day in which players in select markets will hand out free cards to fans entering MLB ballparks.

“From our perspective, every time you have a new star emerge, that’s another chance to draw in new fans,” said Susan Lulgjuraj, Topps marketing manager. “We see a really fertile pipeline of compelling players, both now and in the future.”

There also has been a heightened push around promoting championship stories. Soon after winning last year’s World Series, Ryan said he addressed Houston’s players and encouraged them to maximize their promotional opportunities. 

No Astros player has been more prominent than second baseman Jose Altuve, who despite his diminutive 5-foot-6-inch frame, last year won the AL batting title and the league’s Most Valuable Player award. Last fall he made appearances on NBC’s “Tonight Show” and “Saturday Night Live” and rode in the Disney World parade. He has appeared in national ads for 5-hour Energy, T-Mobile and Fathead.

Altuve, a native of Venezuela, has also worked hard to improve his English-language skills, still a significant hurdle for many other Latin and Asian players. 

“I think Jose’s just scratching the surface of what his potential is on a national level,” Ryan said.

Veteran players such as New York Mets third baseman Todd Frazier have begun to press their younger teammates to be more open to endorsement and promotional opportunities.

“They’re a product, too, and they have to get their names out there,” Frazier said. “If you’re doing well [on the field], you’re going to get marketed.”

As another summer of drama unfolds, baseball will have to see if the same  holds true for the game itself. 

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