<\/p>\n
As if 162 regular-season MLB games per team weren\u2019t enough, every February, players head to Florida and Arizona for two months of spring training before the official start of the season.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re not the only ones packing their bags. Some teams bring along their content, creative, and social media crews to post from spring training and stockpile content for the rest of the season, squeezing in shoots around game and practice schedules.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s one of my favorite times of the year,\u201d Tyler Thompson, director of game entertainment and experiential marketing at the Seattle Mariners, told Marketing Brew. \u201cThe mark of the start of baseball for me, even more than opening day, is getting to go down to spring training, hearing the bat and the mitt, and just starting to ramp up to hopefully what\u2019s going to be a great season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most of the Mariners production team spends around two weeks in Arizona for spring training, and for as long as the team is there, there\u2019s at least a photographer, a videographer, and the team\u2019s senior director of digital marketing and social media, Tim Walsh.<\/p>\n
Planning starts as early as the summer, Ben Mertens, VP of creative and content services, said, and prep kicks into higher gear once the season ends, Thompson said. At that point, staffers start discussing what kind of content they want to film and scheduling shoots.<\/p>\n
Once they touch down for spring training, it\u2019s off to the races\u2014or should we say bases?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an all-out sprint, kind of a hurricane,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cWe come in, we try to get everything that we need for the season across all of our various sets, and leave no trace, because we know that our club is preparing for baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n
The content group for the Baltimore Orioles, who have spring training in Florida, also spends about two weeks \u201cgetting as much as we can as quickly as we can,\u201d Tony Price, director of video creative, said.<\/p>\n
There are other benefits beyond storing up social content for the season. \u201cWe leave right in the harshest point of Baltimore winter,\u201d Price said. \u201cWe come back, and it\u2019s the fake spring everybody\u2019s always talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just because it\u2019s the offseason doesn\u2019t mean the posting stops, and spring training is no exception. Since spring training kicked off, the New York Yankees have posted question-of-the-day videos, the Boston Red Sox \u201clet the outfield cover their own workouts,\u201d and some Los Angeles Dodgers players got in a prank war.<\/p>\n
Marketing Brew informs marketing pros of the latest on brand strategy, social media, and ad tech via our weekday newsletter, virtual events, marketing conferences, and digital guides.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The Orioles have used training to add to \u201cThe Chill,\u201d a personality-based content series featuring players, and share other off-field content, like a pick-up line video for Valentine\u2019s Day. The Mariners, meanwhile, spoofed the pitch comm device that catchers use to communicate with pitchers, mic\u2019d up pitcher Bryce Miller, and shared a video of the content team pranking pitchers Tayler Saucedo and Trent Thornton.<\/p>\n
Not all of the content captured at spring training gets posted immediately. The Mariners content team tries to get shots for upcoming theme nights, Thompson said. Walsh said they also focus on shooting player personality content, which the team has been using in recent years to connect with younger fans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe nuanced part of spring training is you\u2019re trying to capture things that you need for eight months, while also trying to take advantage of what\u2019s happening right in front of you,\u201d Price said.<\/p>\n
Beyond planning out posts, logistics can be challenging, Mertens said: The Mariners, for example, had 10 different sets for shooting content at spring training this year, he said. The team also coordinates with external partners, like a lie-detector company that hooked players up to a polygraph machine for some yet-to-be-shared content, Thompson added.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the fact that the players have, well, training<\/em>. Some athletes get to set as early as 6am, while others report after practice or in the evening, Thompson said. The content team arrives at the complex around 6am, and Walsh said they sometimes shuttle back and forth between set and field along with the players.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to showcase and capture their fun personality, but we also want to show who they are on the field,\u201d Walsh said. \u201cWhether it\u2019s capturing guys and putting together a quick little sizzle video from the day, or a one-off slow-mo clip of a guy on the mound\u2026or strapping a GoPro to a catcher, that\u2019s where we\u2019ll do all those things.\u201d<\/p>\n The days are long, but they\u2019re also a bonding experience for the social teams. Price said Orioles staffers tend to eat \u201clots of tacos\u201d during group meals when they\u2019re down in Florida, and Thompson said some of the Mariners crew even live together for those weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the same up here,\u201d he said. Spring break can\u2019t last forever, but at least there\u2019s opening day to look forward to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n