Spring Training
More Screens for Baseball Means More Customers

The players famously are called “The Boys of Summer,” but, of course, the season begins in spring, when a cold beer isn’t the only chill going around. With more and more corner bars hanging nice, big flatscreen plasmas, promoting your venue as the baseball destination is even more important. Start with a little word of mouth, some modest advertisement, a few television sets and a MLB Extra Innings satellite package, and your bar quickly can earn a reputation as the best place in town to watch baseball. For bars with slow weeknights that presently offer no sports television, capturing the baseball fan demographic as new patronagecould breathe new life into revenue. 

Batter Up
While it’s always good for a bar in the vicinity of a major league team to show predominantly games of that team, keep in mind that even fans of that team are into other games. And, of course, if you’re nowhere near a major franchise, your patron base is up for most of the games anyway. It can be well worth the investment of having multiple screens to accommodate all the games. If you have one or two screens showing games, and a patron comes in wanting to see a different one, you’ve just lost a customer. Kris Kwitzky, owner of Kwitzky’s Dug Out in the Gulf Coast burg of Ocean Springs, Miss., knows the game plan first hand. In fact, Kwitzky’s Dug Out promises a unique experience for the baseball fan. For starters, the bar is shaped like home plate, and everything that hangs on the walls reinforces a sports theme. “We are a local hangout, but we definitely have a lot of people who come in here just to watch sports with us,” Kwitzky says. “Our customers are very loyal, and there are a lot of regulars. They are a mixture of blue collar workers, white collar workers and everyone else.” “Now that we have the satellite package for major league baseball, we can show all of the games,” Kwitzky says. “Revenues have been good, but now we have the ability to show all of the games. So any fan gets to watch his team, plus we have enough televisions to show the games. That means the bar revenue is going to pick up greatly.” Kwitzky believes two things are essential to running a successful pro baseball promotion. One is getting the word out, while the other is having enough televisions to show the games. It does not matter if you use word of mouth, local newspapers and radio, your bar’s Web site or any other method of advertisement, people need to know they can come see their favorite team play at your bar. Kwitzky uses these methods, but he specifically points to the use of his vendors’ help as one of the best ways to promote. “If I ever need anything to help promote baseball, my vendors will do just about anything to help us out,” he says. “They know we have a good thing going and they are eager to help us asmuch as they can.” 

Full Coverage
If you are going to spend the money for the expensive satellite package that gives you every professional team and every game, you had better be willing to invest in enough televisions to make it profitable, Kwitzy advises. “If you are going to do a baseball promotion you had better have at least four or five televisions,” Kwitzky says, “especially if you are not in a baseball town where everyone wants to see the same team. You need the televisions because you are going to have fans of different teams all wanting to watch the games they want to see. You want people to know they can come to your bar and watch their team’s game on television no matter what. “It is that security of knowing they can see their team at your bar that is what will separate your bar from the rest of the bars.”