• by Paul Gough , September 8, 2003

As its 2003 season winds down to a few good pennant races, Major League Baseball is already looking past the Fall Classic for a new marketing play.

MLB has signed with Scarborough Research for its Multi-Market database, which tracks 200,000 consumers' behavior and preferences in 75 markets nationwide.

It's a type of spring training for the league, as baseball tries to reverse declining TV ratings and ballpark attendance, as well as challenges for fans from NFL, NASCAR and other leagues, as well as action sports that seem to have caught the attention of young adults.

The Multi-Market database won't be exclusive for the barons of baseball. Other leagues - the NFL, NBA and NHL among them - already subscribe to the service, said Howard Goldberg, senior vice president of Scarborough Sports Marketing in New York. Individual major and minor league baseball teams use the service, as do advertisers, agencies and media companies.

Goldberg said the survey would give Major League Baseball an in-depth look at their fans, casual and loyal, as well as ways to gain more market share. Sixty-four percent of Americans consider themselves MLB fans, either by attending a game, watching one on TV or listening to it on the radio, according to Scarborough Research. Fifty-five percent of them consider themselves loyal fans.

MLB executives couldn't be reached for comment, but in a prepared statement executive vice president Tim Brosnan said understanding its fan base is critical for baseball's growth. "This relationship with Scarborough will help us capture detailed information about baseball fans on various levels, which will provide great value in our marketing and sales efforts," Brosnan said.

Scarborough's study asks consumers whether they've watched a game on TV, broadcast or cable, or listened to one on the radio. It also asks about Internet use, team names, products and how likely consumers are to purchase MLB-licensed products. Goldberg said the Multi-Market database gives the opportunity to drill deeper into the audience ratings data.

"The beauty of the Scarborough product is that it works very cohesively with both Arbitron and Nielsen," he said. Multi-Market helps to flesh out just who's watching and their behavior and consumer preferences. For the teams that control their inventory of media, Goldberg said the research could help them plan and buy their media. Teams have used Scarborough data to market to potential season ticket holders, finding out the roads they traveled to attend the games and then building marketing plans around the information.