After the Texas Rangers lost the World Series the second year in a row, I have long awaited the start of the 2012 MLB season especially with Florida being renamed Miami along with Ozzie Guillen and Carlos Zambrano going to the fishies in Lil’ Havanna, C.J. Wilson and Albert Pujols going to the Halos and Prince Fielder going to Motor City.  I wouldn’t mind being part of any of these teams as a member of their PR department.  The PR department brings fans to the seats whether its a bad or good year for the team, because fans love the word ‘give-a-way’.  Fans love to see former players that are in the Hall of Fame, in fact the Braves are retiring former pitcher and shoo in to the hall of fame John Smoltz jersey number 29.  Teams like Kansas City and Miami are always anticipated to stay near the bottom of their divisions and that’s roughly where they are at the moment.  As a PR personnel for one of these teams you really have to work on getting the fans in the seats.  You could do something like Dog Days during the summer where fans can bring their dogs to the ballpark to enjoy a game or $5 Thursdays for the first 250 fans that show up to the park, they get a seat for just $5 or give free replica jersey t-shirts to the first 250 fans to show up to the park.  Fans really dig these things, and if they are dedicated enough, they’ll come out to see the hometown 9 or in some cases 10 try to get a win, because every team is do at some point (baseball philosophy).  Now for teams like Tampa Bay and Texas who are at the top of their divisions are anticipated to do well especially after the last 3-5 years.  Fans feel pretty good that they can come to the park and see a win, so a promotional item for these games could be free hats to the first 100 fans that come to the park.  In this case you don’t have to do as much quantity wise as if the team was on the wet side of the crapper.  Then you have you’re outburst teams like Washington and Baltimore who are at the top or close to the top or their respected divisions when they are usually at the bottom.  Fans are way more apt to come to their games because the underdog as arrived to save  the day.  You could give away team koozies with the first 100 beers that are purchased at the park, because who doesn’t like a cold beer on a warm summer day at the ballpark.

With any team, you’ll run into dedicated fans who will come no matter what, but its those fans that show up.  As a PR personnel, you want to cater to all types of fans whether dedicated or fair-weather.  Then you have fans like these in this clip  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RfMVu-bfng