Mandalay Sports
Entertainment is
Reshaping the
Marketing of the
Minors With New
Team Names And
Visually-Appealing
Merchandising.

MLN: You have a new kind of ownership, though. Companies like Mandalay Sports Entertainment that are buying up a number of sports franchises aren't naive. They're much more attuned to marketing and merchandising, and they do it well. They obviously see a marketing opportunity.

Is there something to be said for having that kind of ownership shift where you're bringing in people who are much more marketing savvy?

BR:"Oh absolutely it impacts your league, but there is a balance between being oriented towards national solutions... If you went to Walt Disney, when Walt was alive, and you said 'Walt, we want you to run a successful minor league venue in St. Petersburg, Florida,' for 72 days a year, and you're going to draw 400,000 to 500,000 people, Walt would've said 'We can't afford to do that.'

We have to draw twenty million people. There are advantages of scale, to a certain degree, and then there are disadvantages of scale. We are hoping to have relationships where our relationships are symbiotic. Where we can help each other."

MLN Follow-up: Does that put pressure on some of the older, more traditional baseball people who have seen it more as a sport first? Do they embrace it?

BR: I'm sorry to oversimplify things, but the secret of success in the Pacific Coast League is attendance. The secret to attendance in 2001 is the facility. You have to have a very good, livable facility.

The smallest market in the Pacific Coast League is Des Moines, Iowa. Des Moines has the fourth highest attendance. They have a modest stadium that will celebrate it's 10th anniversary this year. Because that stadium is maintained, because it is the new generation of stadiums, because the operation is first class, they are a clear-cut winner. They are doing everything right.

But you cannot have in, for example, Tacoma, where you are in a very old stadium that is not well strategically-placed relative to the population... It doesn't matter how well you operate that club, you're going to have great difficulty being a success there.

You can't expect our operations to be 'cutting-edge' if you don't have the kind of financial resources to support the kind of staffing and the kind of technology to be cutting-edge.

That is why there is such a tremendous league office emphasis on the facilities."

CONTINUED...

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