How the New York Mets are working to engage baseball’s younger, casual fans

This story is part of a series about how marketers for sports teams and leagues around the world approach social media strategy.

There’s no hard feelings between the New York Mets and anyone who’s waited on line for a beer or a hot dog instead of watching Pete Alonso hit a home run.

In fact, from the eclectic food choices to dedicating a seat in the stadium to McDonald’s mascot Grimace, the team puts a lot of effort into the entertainment options at Citi Field beyond baseball.

That may be because Mets execs know that those people who enjoy taking in a baseball game every once in a while, those who are there more for the vibe of being at a ballpark on a summer day than for the on-field action, are perfect candidates for conversion into full-time fans—especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

“I think the goal is always, ‘How can we get these fans in our ballpark to see the experience and make them baseball fans?’” Bobby Clemens, the Mets’ VP of creative content, told Marketing Brew. “We want these young kids wearing Mets gear and making it cool to be a Mets fan, but ultimately, we want them to come to the park and see that there’s so much more to offer.”

Diamond to square

One of the ways the Mets’ marketing team is working to attract casual baseball fans is by building up the team’s presence outside of Citi Field. After last year’s deep postseason run, excitement around the Mets was high, Chief Growth Officer Andrew Grossman said, and the team wanted to maintain that energy through the offseason and into spring training. That’s how a Mets pop-up ended up in New York’s Union Square.

The space, called Mets House NYC, sells merch, hosts events and activities, and provides opportunities for sponsorship activations. Crucially, it also offers the team an avenue to collect first-party data about its fan base, Grossman said, which led to the finding that 30% of people who have been to Mets House have never been to a game.

“A lot of them are in our database because maybe they bought merch or something, but they’re much more lightly engaged,” he told us. They also tend to be much younger than other fans in the database.

The fact that the crowd passing through Mets House skews younger isn’t entirely surprising: It’s situated near parts of the NYU campus, in addition to other colleges and high schools. To encourage those younger faces to come to the stadium and see a game for themselves, Grossman said the team is introducing a $5 student-ticket deal for anyone who shows their student ID at Mets House.

Even as The Mets target new fans, the team is also looking for ways to engage with its ride-or-dies. This past offseason, the team hosted its first-ever “Amazin’ Day” fan festival, an experience at Citi Field that Grossman said was geared toward driving excitement and ticket sales among core fans. Eventually, though, he said he wants Amazin’ Day to become an event that draws in casual fans, too.

Homerunscreen

The team’s media strategy is also largely aimed at younger fans, Grossman said, as older fans might still get their team info and updates from the evening news.

“A younger fan probably doesn’t have the same information diet, so we’re really thinking about, ‘What is the information diet of a fan, and how do we get ourselves into it?’” he told us.

YouTube and long-form content both play a big role in the Mets’ media mix, according to Clemens, and the team is leaning in, like with a two-part documentary about its 2024 season and signing free agent Juan Soto to the most lucrative deal in pro sports history (Soto previously played for the Yankees) that debuted in March. Content like that can help reach die-hard fans of the team who want behind-the-scenes looks while also attracting more casual fans who might be drawn to the story or culture surrounding a specific player, Clemens said.

“Sometimes you have people that don’t watch baseball, [but] they follow [Mets shortstop] Francisco Lindor because he’s super into fashion,” Clemens said. “Juan Soto is a perfect example of that. It doesn’t matter what team he’s on, the Dominican culture is following Juan Soto the player, so we want to tap into that a lot more…We want to bring some kind of behind-the-scenes feel to this to humanize our players and humanize our brand, really.”

To make sure audiences outside of core fans are discovering Mets content, the team also partners with influencers and celebrities like Queens native and rapper Action Bronson and actor and singer Anthony Ramos, who was born and raised in Brooklyn. The content team also leans into references that young New Yorkers can relate to, he added, like a line in a promo video from last year about how New Yorkers know to “never trust an empty subway car.”

“Those are the fans that are going to be watching us for the next 40, 50 years,” Clemens said. “We want to make it cool for the 17, 18, 19-year-old. Whether they watch baseball or not, we want them to be…wearing a Mets hat.”