Inside the weird, wacky world of Blue Jays minor-league promotions

Unfortunately, getting fans out to watch minor-league baseball can be a tall task. The players are ever-changing, the ballparks are usually pretty basic and there are too many games on the slate for there to be any kind of scarcity.

That sounds like a grim prognosis, but out of that challenge has arisen a culture of innovation and creativity. Hundreds of affiliated minor-league teams face the same problem throughout the summer months and they have one primary weapon to combat it: promotions ranging from bizarre bobbleheads, to over the top food, to the now-ubiquitous Star Wars nights. It’s a phenomenon well-known enough that there’s now a popular Twitter account @MiLBPromos that tracks the action.

“The promotions, the in-game element and everything leading up to the game is as important as the game itself,” says Tyler Parsons, the general manager of the Lansing Lugnuts — the Blue Jays’ Single-A squad.

That may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s simply a matter of minor-league front offices emphasizing what they control. Roster decisions for affiliated teams are made by their major-league parent clubs so a squad like the Lugnuts could end up with a highly competitive or historically incompetent group, and have to sell that product either way.

“We try to make the show of the game as entertaining as possible because we never know what players are here and when they’re going to get called up,” say Sarah Lenau, the marketing and promotions manager with the Double-A New Hampshire FisherCats.

The amount of time and energy invested in minor-league promos is reflected in their sheer quantity. This season, the Toronto Blue Jays have 38 promotions. Their Triple-A team, the Buffalo Bisons, have 54, the FisherCats have 59, the High-A Dunedin Blue Jays have 46 and the Lugnuts have a staggering 69.

So, how do you come up with dozens of ideas that are going to convince folks to spend their summer nights and afternoons with a minor-league team of uncertain quality? For one, you start planning early.

“After the season we get together and talk about what went well, what didn’t go well, where we have room for improvement,” says Mike Simoncelli manager of entertainment and promotions “And I take that information and say ‘OK, what events are we maybe going to carry over to next year and what are we going to eliminate?'”

Once decisions are made then comes the fun part: brainstorming. That’s the time for staffers like Daniel Venn, media relations coordinator for the Dunedin Blue Jays, to shine.

“I think I have a reputation here of being the bad ideas guy on our staff,” he says with a laugh. “I showed up at the offseason with 30 different promo ideas we could have done and they told me no on 27 of them. That’s kind of how it goes.”

At these meetings minor-league front office members get to throw out their most ridiculous pie-in-the-sky pitches, even ones with virtually no chance of getting through.

“One I have always left alone and haven’t been able to figure out is a ‘Purge Night’,” Parsons says. “We were going to do for one inning randomly during the game we would sound off the purge siren and all concessions would be free for one inning. We were going to call it the ‘Food Purge’, but we haven’t found the right formula or the right sponsor to tie into it yet. But that’s an idea that I’ve always had some thoughts about.”

“We’ll throw out ideas like on our 25th anniversary we’ll have tickets for a quarter,” Simoncelli adds. “But sometimes they aren’t feasible from a cost perspective even if it would draw a lot of people in.”

Often it’s just not possible to make your heart’s desire a reality.

“One minor-league team did Cats in the Park and as someone who loves cats I think that would be great to have a bunch of cats here,” Lenau says. “I feel like that would be a terrible idea in the long run…”

Even though nothing comes of most of the ideas brought to the table, that doesn’t mean there isn’t value in hearing everyone out. As Lenau explains, sometimes even the least practical idea can be re-modeled into something useful.

“You take one piece of that idea and you say we’re not going to do that, but can we adapt that. Usually one idea sparks another, which sparks another.”

Once the marathon meetings are over, the teams have a slate and with any luck some gems manage to make it through the vetting process. That’s certainly the case with the Blue Jays’ affiliates this year.

In Lansing, perhaps the crown jewel was Swipe Right Night — a concept that Parsons willingly admits was stolen from the Atlanta Hawks, but was executed beautifully.

“There were three elements,” Parsons explains. “If people matched they could mingle at the station and they’d get upgraded to suite lounge for free. Woman got a rose, guy got a thing of breathmints. We also did a Tinder profile for mascot and whoever matched got a free t-shirt. Lastly, we auctioned off two of our staff who “needed to get back on their feet”. We had a raffle to see who could get an all -expense-paid date with our groundskeeper and box office manager.

“I don’t how many tickets that sold, but it was fun and creative for our staff. You could definitely tell there was a different energy in the park that night.”

For Dunedin, finding their top promotion was a matter of simply combining three things that everyone loves: beer, bacon and fireworks.

Beer, Bacon and Fireworks Night was the brainchild of current general manager Mike Liberatore. Initially the club had a night that was solely a cook-off of bacon-themed items, but Liberatore wanted to take it to the next level.

“It was like ‘OK we’ve got something here, how do we make this bigger?’ So we had done a beerfest so I said ‘Let’s combine the bacon cook-off and the beerfest — and let’s add fireworks.’ At the time I wasn’t the GM so I went to my boss and said, ‘kind of hear me out I need some money on fireworks, but I think this could be a really big event.”

Not only does the event play on the public’s unquenchable hunger for bacon and thirst for beer, it plays on the competitive nature of the community’s local restaurants and breweries — of which there are many. As Liberatore puts it, “You can’t throw a baseball down here without hitting a craft brewery”.

Over in New Hampshire, Lenau is most excited about a promo that will explore a franchise hypothetical: What Could Have Been Night.

“We’re renaming ourselves the Grand State Mountain Men which was one of the options for the team when we moved here.”

Lenau is hoping that beyond the costume change the event will draw on the area’s civic pride.

“I don’t know if you’ve been to New Hampshire, but people from here are very proud to be from here.”

Lastly, in Buffalo, the flagship event is not a unique idea, but rather a top-notch execution as the Bisons’ have become renowned for: Star Wars Night. The event sold out in 2017 and has become an immovable staple on the schedule.

“We sell what we have to refer to as ‘laser swords’ for licensing reasons and people love coming out, dressing up and getting into the spirit of their fandom,” Simoncelli says.

Honestly speaking, looking at some of each club’s marquee events misses the sheer scope and thought that goes into this quirky corner of baseball. In no order whatsoever, here’s a sampling of the nonsense the Blue Jays affiliates have been up to this season:

When you don’t have the power to build the best team you can, building the best experience is the next best thing.

“Take a look at what the Las Vegas Golden Knights are doing,” Parsons says. “Their pre-game theatrics turns their entire stadium into a Vegas show in between the action.”

Now, much of the Golden Knights’ unparalleled in-game pageantry was a function of the team being in Vegas, but the franchise also smartly decided to prioritize turning their games into experiences that transcended a normal hockey game — in part because they didn’t know how good their product was going to be. The exact same principle applies to minor-league baseball, just on a more modest scale.

Lenua sums it up best when she describes her goal for the FisherCats’ fan experience.

“You may not know who won the game, but at least you’ll know you had a good time.”

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