Review by Kyle Park in KIN 332 (Section 2)
The articles main focuses are the powers possessed by the MLB and how they used those powers to market and manage. The article was a critique, itself, from a book that was written about how the MLB uses and abuses its powers. The article broke down the book into 4 sections: First Base: creating power, Second base: developing power, Third base: abusing power and Home plate: balancing power.
The two powers brought up in discussion are soft and hard power. Soft power is the ability to accomplish objectives through attraction rather than force or intimidation. Hard power tends to be more military or economical in form. Both of these powers are vital in the ins and outs of the MLB. In certain situations there can be more emphasis on one power over the other and that decides how the situation at hand is handled and whether it will produce a positive or negative outcome.
The article touches on marketing in a couple different areas, one being the history of baseball in America. It seems that there has had to be a mythological background to baseball being Americas sport and Cooperstown being the home of baseball. The MLB, to keep its audience, markets baseball’s history in the US on our own soil. In doing, this spectators and audiences continue to participate with the same passion. The myth side of the MLB enables them to use hard and soft powers in managing and marketing the game.
The article also touched on abusing power. This had to do with the marketing strategies towards international players and the different tactics used by the MLB to acquire talent at lower cost in an effort to increase profit. These actions have emphasis on hard power strategies while at the same time attracting talent through its soft power mythology and appeal.
The final topic looked at in the article is the balancing power or global marketplace. The MLB has taken some steps to begin a global MLB world. Baseball in the Olympics was a solid effort to globalize. Also, the World Baseball Classic has had continued success and hopes to continue to globally bring baseball together. The MLB overall seeks to become a smart power leader in developing an increasing network of global affiliations and games to increase its profitability and appeal.
The article was written well to portray and give good examples of the powers in the MLB and the ways the MLB uses these powers. It gave the reader an understanding of the factors impacting the MLB’s management strategies and marketing decisions.
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Review by Tommi Nissinen in KIN 332 (Section 2)
Smart ball is an article, which reviews a book called Smart Ball: Marketing the Myth and Managing the Reality of Major League Baseball written by Robert F. Lewis II. In the article, the author, Ted B. Peetz, highlights the most important parts of the book, and focuses on examining the use of “smart power” in Major League Baseball.
According to the article, smart power is the hybrid of two distinct techniques – the hard power and the soft power. The hard power refers to the use of force and intimidation and can be seen as more military or economic in form. Soft power, on the other hand, refers to a more gentle approach, which tries to attract its audience through attractiveness and unique appeal rather than force and intimidation.
Smart power tries to combine these two techniques in order to fully maximize the strengths of both models in order to achieve set goals. The article reveals how baseball has utilized soft and hard approaches in the past, and how its recent trend of shifting towards the combination of these two has affected its marketing strategies.
The article introduces four separate aspects of baseball:
1. Baseball as a sport
2. Baseball as a domestic monopoly
3. Baseball as a neocolonial power
4. Baseball as an international business
In the first aspect, baseball as a sport, the author focuses on how baseball has been, and still is, marketed as America’s national pastime. This is an example of the use of soft power in marketing the sport in America. It is an attempt to create patriotic ties between the sport and its audience. Recent trends, such as building what the author calls “retro-ballparks”, ballparks that try to capture the feeling of older playing fields, are a marketing approach, which goal is to create nostalgia in the target markets, and ultimately create more revenue and profit for the organizations that are involved with sport.
The second aspect, baseball as a domestic monopoly, attacks baseball’s “unique legal status as perhaps the only sanctioned private monopoly in the country”. Here, the author reveals the use of hard power in baseball by giving an example of how the lack of competitive pressure has given the MLB the possibility to ignore “both marketing and production opportunities that could have broadened and strengthened its position in the broader sports entertainment world”. The author also points out how baseball has successfully combined soft and hard powers by harmonizing its cultural and commercial strategies.
The third aspect, baseball as a neocolonial power, focuses on examining how the sport has been, and still is, exploited as a profitable business. An example the author points out in the article is acquiring talent at lower cost in an effort to increase profits. This almost automatically leads to questioning the higher morals of the organizations involved. What are they willing to do in order to make higher profits?
Finally, the fourth aspect, baseball as an international business, introduces different ways the sport has been, and is still, marketed overseas towards new market groups. According to the article, MLB has worked hard on keeping baseball as an Olympic sport. This would allow them to reach new audiences, more crowds, and therefore higher profits. However, marketing baseball globally has only one very big problem – the effort to create an image of America’s favorite pastime can easily backfire when reaching for new markets overseas.
