Jeffery D. Derrick, M.S. (Illinois State University)

Abstract

The concept of marketing orientation is explored and applied to minor league baseball operations. The research presented herein was conducted to determine if minor league general managers are oriented more toward selling or more toward marketing. The distinction is made between the two concepts and the results suggest that minor league business operations have not evolved past a selling orientation.

Introduction

Major league baseball franchises are big businesses. Zimbalist (1992) estimated that, in 1990, revenue for major league baseball teams was nearly $52,000,000 per team, annually. Revenue-producing areas available to professional baseball franchises typically include "gate [receipts]; other in-stadium interests like concessions; over-the-air broadcasts; cable [television]; and that special convergence of the corporate community that supports stadium advertising and luxury suites" (Gorman & Calhoun, 1994, p. 19).

Minor league baseball is professional baseball but on a lesser scale. It has evolved as a training and proving ground for possible future major leaguers. This preparation takes place at several levels including Triple-A ("AAA"), a step below the major leagues; Double-A ("AA"), a step below that; and Single-A ("A"), one level lower. (There are others in the hierarchy as well including short season "A" leagues, rookie leagues, and instructional leagues.)
For the fan, there is something intriguing and alluring about minor league baseball. Many fans feel that the game is purer at this level; the players work a little harder and are grateful for the opportunity. Their goal is to prepare themselves for the next level of play.

Minor league baseball franchise administration is less complex than major league. Staffs are smaller with fewer marketing specialists. In the minors, every revenue source may be a critical component of a profitable operation.

Marketing Orientation

Kotler (1994) discusses four business philosophies or orientations toward the marketplace. The production concept states that consumers will purchase those products which are available in the greatest quantity and at the lowest cost to them. Little product differentiation is apparent at this stage. The product concept states that consumers will favor goods that are superior to others in quality or features. The selling concept shifts the emphasis from the product to aggressive selling and promotions. Closing the sale is the goal of this orientation. The selling concept is often characterized by an increase in the size of the sales force.

Finally, the marketing concept eschews the notion that the most important element in business philosophy is either the production capability or capacity or aggressive sales. Instead, this concept focuses on the needs and wants, both present and future, of potential customers. Kotler (1994) offers further clarification: "[s]elling focuses on the needs of the seller; marketing on the needs of the buyer" (p. 18).

Kohli and Jaworski (1990) discuss actionable elements of the marketing concept: (a) intelligence generation; (b) intelligence dissemination; and (c) responsiveness. Intelligence generation includes demand assessment, examination of external factors, competitors, and customer needs. This phase also includes coordination of the data gathered.

Intelligence dissemination involved sharing the data secured in the generation phase. Both formal and informal communication are desirable as is accessibility.

Responsiveness to the market intelligence gathered and disseminated is perhaps the most crucial step of the process in moving toward a marketing concept. In some ways, it may be a simpler activity to collect and share information than it is to act upon it. Responsiveness may appropriately be considered the springboard to becoming a more marketing-oriented firm. In this phase, the business (a) selects the target markets; (b) designs new products or changes existing ones in response to customer input; (c) anticipates future customers' needs; and (d) distributes and promotes products that elicit a favorable action on the part of the consumer.

Mullin (1985) postulated that some believe sport marketing is little more than sales. In particular, he stated that sport organizations hold the opinion that sales and promotions are synonymous with marketing. This research will explore the concept of marketing orientation and if minor league baseball sport marketers' attitudes have evolved since Mullin's statement. Indeed, Mullin, Hardy, and Sutton (1993) agree that the emphasis on sales and promotions remains a danger and that there is "a failure to employ more professionally trained marketers" in sport marketing (p. 7).

Purpose Of The Study

The purpose of this research was to ascertain the extent to which marketing data is gathered and utilized as a basis for informed decision making in minor league baseball operations.

Research Methods

This study concentrated on the three highest levels of minor league baseball. There are in excess of 100 minor league teams in North America in 11 different leagues. The survey instrument, adapted to sport marketing from Jaworski and Kohli (1993) and Kohli, Jaworski, and Kumar (1993), was mailed to 115 minor league teams in mid-season in 1995. The study consisted of 12 Likert-scaled statements. The first four addressed intelligence generation; the second four addressed intelligence dissemination while the final four statements addressed responsiveness. Respondents were asked to indicate the strength of their agreement with the various statements using 1 for "strongly disagree" to 5 for "strongly agree."

Questionnaire

The statements were as follows:

Intelligence generation:
 

1. Members of team staff meet with customers at least annually to ascertain what services they would like to see offered in the future.

2. This team does a lot of in-house market research with customers as the focus.

3. We poll customers at least annually to assess the quality of our products/services.

4. We collect leisure industry information through informal means (e.g., lunch with industry colleagues.

Intelligence dissemination:
 

5. We have staff meetings at least monthly to discuss market trends and developments.

6. Those responsible for team marketing spend time discussing customers' future needs with other areas of team staff.

7. The team's staff periodically circulates documents among staff personnel (e.g., reports and newsletters) that provide information on our customers.

8. Data on customer satisfaction are distributed at all levels in the team's staff on a regular basis.

Responsiveness
 

9. Principles of market segmentation (i.e., dividing customers into specific homogenous groups) drive new product/service/promotion offerings.

10. We periodically review our product/service/promotion efforts to ensure that they are in line with what our customers want.

11. The activities of the various areas of team staff are well-coordinated.

12. Customer complaints are addressed immediately to the satisfaction of the customer.

Results and Discussion

The results provided a basis for determining whether minor league general managers viewed their jobs as simply one of promotions and sales or if they believed that thoughtful strategic marketing is more important. Lamb (1991) offered his opinion based upon informal observation of minor league operations in several leagues in various parts of the country during one season. By exploring the problem of nonattendance by potential minor league consumers, he says,
 

But what seems unusual is that an industry as pervasive as baseball doesn't know why. Nabisco, I'm sure, can tell you who eats Wheat Thins and Proctor and Gamble knows who brushes with Crest, but baseball has no idea who comes to its parks, why they come (or don't come), when they decide to come, where they came from, what they want to find once they get there, or whether they liked being there. It doesn't know because it never bothered to ask. Baseball, after all, is the national pastime and, the reasoning goes, its draw is mystical and beyond the realm of ordinary market surveys. The premise is a dangerous one if baseball expects to compete for leisure dollars in the decades ahead" (p. 126).

The instruments were mailed to 115 minor league general managers. These administrators were judged to be the most likely potential respondents to answer questions relative to overall business or marketing philosophy. Sixty-four completed surveys were returned for a response rate of 55.6%.

Under intelligence generation, minor league general managers responded in the "neutral" and below the "agree" category. The score of the mean ranged from 3.25 to 3.91 and there were relatively narrow standard deviations. This suggests that there may some room for improvement in this phase if team staffs wish to embrace the marketing orientation.

Table 1: Intelligence generation statements

.1=Strongly Disagree. 5=Strongly Agree

  Under intelligence dissemination, the responses were similar. Again, the means remained below "agree" in the "neutral" area. This therefore suggests that it would, indeed, be difficult to disseminate data if little were gathered in the first place. For this reason, this set of responses was not particularly surprising.

Table 2: Intelligence dissemination statements

.1=Strongly Disagree. 5=Strongly Agree

Note. Statement 5 had 63 responses.

Under responsiveness, the results showed some exceptions to the previous responses. Statement 10 produced a response in the "agree" range (M=4.28). Statement 12 produced a similar response (M=4.30). Statements 9 and 11 produced results similar to the previous sections. It would be interesting to know, given these results, if minor league staffs consider that customer complaints form a sufficient basis for a conclusive and actionable marketing research program which provides adequate information to review product/service/promotion efforts.
  

Table 3: Responsiveness statements 

.1=Strongly Disagree. 5=Strongly Agree

Note. Statement 12 had 63 responses.

Within the context of marketing orientation as a business philosophy described by Jaworski and Kohli (1993) and Kohli, Jaworski, and Kumar (1993), minor league operations seem to be minimally oriented to this philosophy. The argument might be made that minor league baseball operations have not evolved past the aggressive selling concept. Changing a business philosophy might be a difficult and time-consuming task particularly when it involves changing perceptions and the beliefs of an entire industry. Hodge, Anthony, and Gales (1996) address concept of change in an organizational theory context: "On the one hand, organizations desire change in order to remain competitive…On the other hand, organizations often resist change because of their desire for relative stability and predictability" (p. 359). 

It appears that for baseball to remain competitive as consumers experience greater demands on their leisure time, minor league baseball operations must consider a change in their philosophy of operation to become more consumer focused. The foregoing research suggests that minor league baseball marketers should begin moving toward a marketing concept in their philosophy of conducting business. Only by becoming familiar with the demographics and psychographics of the customer base can minor league baseball franchises hope to develop into consistently profitable entities.

In the future, it would be interesting to see if the results described in this research resemble those in another industry. Comparing the data from different but similar-sized firms would indicate whether minor league baseball operations are on par or behind in marketing orientation philosophy.

References

Gorman, J. and Calhoun, K. (1994) The Name of the Game, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Hodge, B. J., Anthony, W. P. and Gales, L. M. (1996) Organization Theory: A Strategic Approach, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Jaworski, B. J. and Kohli, A. K. (1993) "Marketing Orientation: Antecedents and Consequences," The Journal of Marketing, Vol 57 No 3, pp. 53-70.

Kohli, A. K. and Jaworski, B. J. (1990) "Marketing Orientation: The Construct, Research Propositions, and Managerial Implications," The Journal of Marketing, Vol 54 No 2, pp. 1-18.

Kohli, A. K., Jaworski, B. J. and Kumar, A. (1993) "MARKOR: A Measure of Marketing Orientation," Journal of Marketing Research, Vol 30, pp. 467-477.

Kotler, P. (1994) Marketing Management, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Lamb, D. S. (1991) Stolen Season: A Journey Through America and Baseball's Minor Leagues, New York: Random House.

Mullin, B. (1985) In G. Lewis and H. Appenzeller (Eds.), Successful Sport Management, Charlottesville, VA: Michie Company.

Mullin, B. J., Hardy, S. and Sutton, W. A. (1993) Sport Marketing, Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.

Zimbalist, A. S. (1992) Baseball and Billions, New York: BasicBooks.