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               My SPTE 590: Business of Baseball special topics class for my minor, sport and entertainment management, and my role as a sportswriter for The Daily Gamecock have both shown me that the sports industry revolves around many integral business aspects. Through this class and my experiences covering Gamecocks athletic events for our student newspaper, I have learned that sports fans, members of the sports media, internal employees of sports organizations, and the athletes themselves each play separate but related and important roles within the sports industry. 

               Throughout my Business of Baseball course in the spring 2020 semester, I learned many lessons specifically about Minor League Baseball that were articulated by my professor Mr. John Katz. In addition to teaching the class, Mr. Katz serves as the team president of the Columbia Fireflies, who were the New York Mets Class-A affiliate at the time I took his class. Mr. Katz regularly spoke from his own experiences as a sports executive, and his lessons about the industry resonated with me each time our class met. 

              One particular concept that stood out to me stemmed from an assigned reading from the Harvard Business Review and the resulting discussion our class had about it. My biggest takeaway from the article is that marketing has changed and will continue to change dramatically, and everyone within an organization must concern themselves with those changes during the digital age especially. As I learned, this concept pertains to all organizations and not just sports organizations, but Mr. Katz showed me how the concept rings true in sports. Fan expectations have changed considerably and sports marketers must constantly evolve their efforts to meet those expectations. With ticket sales being the force that drives venue management within the sports industry, it is crucial to attract fans to the venue and provide them an enjoyable experience so they keep coming back consistently. Mr. Katz extended that idea to the Fireflies and Minor League Baseball (MiLB), saying that MiLB has a considerably high churn rate of single-game ticket buyers. As I learned, Mr. Katz and his marketing department at the Fireflies strive to use data and analytics to their organization’s advantage to craft marketing and promotional messages through a variety of mediums to new fans or those who have already been to Fireflies games before and may not truly need as much convincing as it may seem to return to the Fireflies ballpark for a game. For this reason, the Fireflies hired an organization called Stellaralgo which utilizes increasing amounts of data regarding sports fans’ preferences, spending habits, and other personal details to build a more sustained relationship between fans and sports organizations. 

             Mr. Katz characterized sports teams as small businesses, and his lessons throughout the class helped me understand how they strive to appeal to their customer base and keep them coming back. An admittedly candid phrase I have heard in my previous sport and entertainment classes has been “figuring out how to get butts in seats”, meaning convincing fans to buy tickets to come see events live and in person at the venue. My Business of Baseball class with Professor Katz elaborated more on how sports teams go about doing that and how this benefits the organization in a variety of ways. Overall, this class taught me that fans are a very important stakeholder group for MiLB ballclubs, and teams such as the Fireflies must embrace the potential to establish lifelong and loyal fans through extensive marketing efforts. 

            However, I have also learned all sports teams do not allocate resources the same way and gear their marketing efforts to the same groups of people. My experience covering athletic events across campus at the University of South Carolina and other venues throughout Columbia have allowed me to see these differences firsthand and gain further insight relating to other aspects of the business side of sports.

            While covering the “Palmetto Series” between the South Carolina and Clemson baseball teams during the 2019 and 2020 college baseball seasons, I was introduced to the differences in allocation of resources between a Division I college baseball venue and a MiLB baseball venue. In February 2019, I covered a Palmetto Series game at Founders Park, the Gamecocks’ home ballpark. After arriving early to cover the game, I did a lap around the ballpark before I headed up to the press box. While doing so, I peeked into the team’s state-of-the-art, nearly 4,000 square-foot weight room. Along with the impressive player lounge, home locker room at Founders Park and various other high quality features available to the Gamecock baseball players, the weight room showed me that the baseball program puts a premium on showing recruits and Gamecock baseball that they will have many wonderful things to take advantage of and benefit from during their time with the program. As I marveled at the high quality weight room, I realized that the end result of allocating resources toward things the student-athletes have at their disposal is putting forth a competitive and compelling product on the baseball field year after year, which figures to keep fans consistently coming back to the ballpark year in and year out. 

           Additional features many fans may not always – or ever – see at Founders Park such as the press box and press conference room are some more features geared toward a specific group. Journalists, other external media members to the Gamecocks baseball team, and even the athletes and coaches themselves who find themselves in these settings also develop a favorable perspective of the venue. 

           The following year, I covered a Clemson-Carolina neutral site baseball game at Segra Park, which coincidentally is the home ballpark of the Columbia Fireflies. When I covered the game there, I saw many elements of the ballpark that showed me the Fireflies organization’s emphasis on providing the optimal experience for fans, which as a result can detract from the quality of facilities and features the players and sports media personnel have at the venue. For example, I noticed that Segra Park had a much smaller press box and press conference room, simpler locker rooms, and batting cages of slightly lesser quality than Founders Park did.

          This is not a knock on Segra Park at all, as the Fireflies ballpark was named the ‘Ballpark of the Year’ in 2016 and the ‘Class A Ballpark of the Decade’ by Ballpark Digest. During my time covering the game at Segra Park and a tour of the ballpark Mr. Katz provided during my Business of Baseball class, I saw many notable features at Segra Park such as suites, diamond seating, eating areas, and long-drawn beer stations that serve to provide an enjoyable, comfortable, and memorable time for fans at the Fireflies ballpark. These features enable fans to enjoy the company of those around them and the overall atmosphere at Segra Park, because MiLB is a bit more about bringing people from all over the community together to an enjoyable atmosphere than it is about showcasing world-class baseball talent that a Major League Baseball team does and Division I college teams hope to produce. However, as Mr. Katz said in our class, if the action on the baseball field is exciting and keeps fans engaged at Segra Park, then that’s an added bonus for the MiLB organization.

         My coverage for The Daily Gamecock at each of these ballparks showed me the differences in how the two organizations allocate resources, which I have learned is certainly worth acknowledging. Personally, I aspire to have a career in sports media or sports business in one way or another, and the marketing concepts in my class and experiences with The Daily Gamecock that indirectly allowed me to see the differences between MiLB and college ballparks have been eye-opening. My experiences both in and beyond the classroom helped me recognize that I slightly favor the prospect of working within a college sports team more than a minor league or other professional team. From this, I was motivated to apply for a position with Allen University as the athletic department’s sports information director, which I was offered the opportunity to do during the spring 2021 semester as I also mentioned in my second key insight essay. Nonetheless, I have learned it is paramount for me and my future colleagues no matter where my career brings me in the overall sports industry to understand the business aspects pertinent to us as employees within our organization. For a sports organization to operate successfully, everyone working within it must understand their role and how their organization functions on a macro level.