Out of Office and In the Ballpark

Seattle Mariners look to bring a unique activation to corporate fans

Afternoon baseball. A concept loved by fans across the continent, but only on the weekends. The weekday afternoon baseball is a tough sell for ticket sales reps, and a tough buy for most blue- and white-collar workers. This past Wednesday, the Seattle Mariners partnered with Geekwire, a Seattle-based tech/business media website to try and find a happy medium.

The Mariners hosted “Work from the Ballpark Day”, aimed at bringing office and remote workers from the downtown Seattle area down to T-Mobile Park to enjoy the game while “working”. Fans (employees?) were able to purchase a $50 ticket in the Hit-it-Here Café (which is in the outfield) and not only got to take in the game but received WiFi access and a special 5-course lunch menu.

The Mariners Twitter account decided to have a little fun with the event, and created a mock “PowerPoint Presentation” about the event, following the trend of many TikToks where amateur-looking PowerPoints are used to explain something:

Overall, the event sold 150 tickets, and the Seattle Mariners staff was proud of being the first MLB team to have an activation like this. The Mariner’s SVP of Marketing, Gregg Greene, noted that the team is considering how work life has changed because of the COVID19 pandemic, and how the team must think differently to engage with fans. “The great thing about baseball is the different communities, the different neighbourhoods that you can create that fans create inside the ballpark, whether they do it themselves organically. They have to work. Everybody has to go to work. Why not do it at the ballpark?”, Greene mentioned in an interview.

Out-of-the-box thinking is what catches the eyes and attracts fans. The way we consume sports and live our lives has been transformed by technology, and it’s no secret that the pandemic helped to accelerate this in some respects. For the Mariners, who use tech to their advantage in the ballpark already, this should be a sign for more to come, and something to keep an eye on. Just remember to look up from your screen every so often in case a home run ball comes flying in.

September 9, 2022 - Issue 55 of The Sport Marketeer