Typical Day in a Minor League Baseball Front Office

In an effort to shed some light on what goes on during a cold, wintry, Ohio day in February leading up to a Lake County Captains baseball season I’ll share my experiences from one day this past week.

I begin my day around 8:15 and, much like anyone else in the business world, the day begins by checking voice mails and e-mails. After deleting a pre-recorded voice mail message left at 9:30 PM the night before, I turn my attention to my computer and delete spam messages promising me huge fortunes from my friends overseas in exchange for my social security and credit card numbers. There are a couple legitimate e-mails, but they can wait for the time being. Then, I check my legal pad of to-do items and get to work.

First item on my list today – come up with weekly sales incentive for our ticketing staff. Depending on the week these range from making “X” number of phone calls, to renewing a certain number of season ticket accounts to planning theme events during the season. Since it’s closer to the beginning of the season and we’re spending a lot of time with season ticket holders I decide to tie our goal for the week into selling parking passes. We control a lot around our ballpark which has about 250 spots. Some of these are for staff and players, but the others are sold on a game-by-game basis. So I decide the goal for the week is for each ticket sales member of the staff to sell parking passes to at least three of their 2012 Season Ticket Holders who did NOT have parking the previous season. If they reach the goal they each get a $25 bonus.

Next up is finalizing the finishing touches on the advertising and vending agreement with our hard-serve ice cream supplier, Velvet Ice Cream. This partnership includes our “Ice Cream Batter of the Game” promotion where we give out free ice cream to one row of fans if a pre-selected player on our team gets a hit, signage in and around one of our concession stands, and one “Velvet Ice Cream Night” during the season where fans will get free ice cream samples and prizes from Velvet. Once it’s completed it’s e-mailed to my marketing contact and the waiting game to receive the signed copy of the agreement begins.

I have a meeting scheduled for 10 AM which is pushed back until 11 AM because my contact is running late. In the meantime I respond to e-mails and make some phone calls to companies who are renewal accounts or are on my list of new advertising prospects for 2012.

At 11:15 my contact from one of our food vendors arrives and I meet with him and our Director of Concessions to discuss their marketing plans for the season as well as discuss what products we’ll be ordering from this company during the season. We also talk about hosting our second annual Clambake at the Ballpark with this company which we did for the first time in 2011 and had nearly 100 people attend in our first year.

Next up – Lunch. Today it’s Schlotsky’s Deli – a sponsor in case you were wondering.

On to my next item…measuring the distance around the ballpark, inside and out, to come up with waypoints for a Walking Tour around Classic Park. This is a promotion I am working on with Lake Health, our official Healthcare Provider, to encourage our fans to get out of their seats and walk around the ballpark once or twice while they are at the game. Lake Health is promoting many various wellness initiatives in the area and this was one I suggested to them as part of their partnership with the Captains.

Following this I finalize an agreement with a local sign vendor, L&M Specialties, to produce and install some of our ballpark signage this season. Sign, scan and e-mail agreement back to my contact at L&M.

Jake Schrum, our Manager of Promotions and the Captains’ one-person “Art Department”, comes into my office to get my opinion on some logos which we use to brand our weekly promotions at the ballpark. Today’s question…which one of four logos for our Thursday Date Night promotion looks the best? We discuss, get one other person’s opinion, one minor change is suggested, and it’s on to the next to-do item.

After talking with Jake I have a little down time to get through returning e-mails and voice mail messages.

Finally, I have an intern interview scheduled for 4:15 PM so I get out his resume and cover letter to re-read them prior to him arriving. The student comes a few minutes early so I conduct the interview and give him a nickel tour of the ballpark before he heads back to school.

At the end of every day I go back to my legal pad of to-do items and re-write it with the old and completed items omitted, tasks that I haven’t gotten to yet moved to the top, and new items added in order of importance.

At about 5:15 I leave the office and it’s off to my much more important job of being a husband and a dad to an almost 8-year old daughter and 5-year old son.