Striking up interest: How branding helps British audiences connect with baseball

David Craik touches base with Richard Evans, president at the British Baseball Federation, to discuss how the American sport is branded to audiences across the Atlantic.

When it comes to sports branding and marketing, much of the emphasis – apart from swelling a club or association’s coffers – is usually on getting more ‘bums on seats’ at weekly games or major events.

For minority sports the aims are often different. The focus there – especially if you are a sport with a traditionally American audience trying to get noticed in the UK – is more on participation than new fans splashing the cash in the stadium bar or merchandise store.

That has been the challenge facing Richard Evans over the last two years at the British Baseball Federation.

Most of that period has been spent working as marketing and communications lead at the Federation, which oversees 47 clubs and 89 teams across England and Wales, before taking on the role of president last December.

Evans is also a former chairman of and current player at Bristol Baseball Club whose five adult teams, including a woman’s team and a youth side, plays its games at a purpose-built baseball diamond at Somerdale Pavilion at Keynsham, Bristol.

The games are usually played in front of a crowd measured in the tens rather than the thousands. “For Bristol we get up to 20 people, which is a good crowd for the league,” he says. “Most of the games played up and down the country every Sunday between April and August are in either a field near a built-up area or in a public park. They are venues where people either deliberately go to because they know a game of baseball is going on or it is something they come across, stop and watch. We tend to get bigger crowds for our play-off and championship games, but it takes time to build a spectator base.”

Evans’ own love of baseball began during a road trip of New England when he went on a tour of the iconic Fenway Park – home to Major League Baseball team The Boston Red Sox. He began playing in 2015 in his forties and joined the BBF in 2022.

Given his background in marketing and communications in both the public and private sectors, Evans was given the task by then BBF president Tom Thornhill of professionalising its activities.

Getting the basics right

“Before I joined, there were no real branding, communications or marketing activities. They never made it a priority,” Evans explains. “It was really starting from a low base and making sure the basics were right. So, sticking to our branding, using our logo in everything we did, having a regular social media presence, ensuring everything was spelt correctly and that photos were up to date. We wanted to smarten everything up.”

The initial work had a heavy focus on ‘news,’ ensuring that all of the Federation’s clubs and followers had all the needed information on league and cup schedules, performances, open days, promoting umpiring and scoring courses, and anything else impacting the baseball community.

He adds, “Another part of the communications work was raising awareness of the game and getting more people involved as a player, scorer, umpire, volunteer or spectator. We wanted to give people a greater understanding of what was available to them and where they could go to find it. So, if you lived in Coventry, it was about informing people that there was a club nearby. Branding played an important part in this.”

Indeed, last September the BBF designed a rail map style poster to provide more information to the public.

“We posted it on social media, and it follows the style of a typical railway line map but instead of stations we have baseball clubs,” explains Evans. “It was a nice visual way of showing where clubs are located in England and Wales. Whenever a new club joins the map changes, and they are allocated their own station.”

Whether it is a new style map or innovative measures such as encouraging players and spectators to send photos of domestic games to win a prize, the brand and logo are at the forefront.

“We just didn’t have that consistent use of our logo before,” Evans explains. “We have recently created new social media templates for our posts, again ensuring that the brand remains consistent in everything we do.”

The logo of the BBF, incorporating a baseball and Union Jack-style design, has largely remained undisturbed.

“The logo is undergoing a slight change, although most people will likely not notice,” he says. “We are using different typefaces which are a little bolder. The previous one we thought was too weak. It is more like the branding used by the national team GB Baseball, which also comes under the umbrella of the BBF. We want to move the two closer together in terms of colours and font. That makes it more easily recognisable to the public.”

A logo change is not on the agenda at present, Evans adds. Certainly not until the end of the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

In December, UK Sport announced funding awards for the Great Britain Women’s Fastpitch Softball and Great Britain Baseball National Teams as part of the overall funding settlement for the LA Games. The teams will receive a combined £1 million over the next four years.

That money won’t trickle down to the domestic game but a successful performance by the GB teams would certainly provide a boost to the BBF’s aim of growing awareness of the sport in the UK.

Finding its big breakthrough

Of course, the BBF – like other traditional American sports such as American Football and basketball – is hampered by British fans not ‘being born’ into a supporting culture, like a dad passing down his love of football to his son or daughter.

Even if fans watch American sports, they also tend to develop allegiances with teams in US leagues and may not feel the same attachment to British teams. They have also got used to a higher level of play than they might expect in a domestic league.

But tapping into an existing love of baseball and the profile of the main US league – Major League Baseball (MLB) – is helping grow the number of UK players.

Evans explains that the BBF has worked hard to take advantage of the MLB London Series, which sees teams playing competitive regular season games in London. In 2024, UK fans saw the New York Mets take on the Philadelphia Phillies at the London Stadium – home of the 2012 Olympics and now Premier League football team West Ham United.

It was also broadcast on TNT Sports in the UK.

“The MLB community in the UK is very large. The London Series is always sold out,” Evans says. “So, that tells us that there are obviously thousands of people who enjoy watching baseball that we can get to come down to their local club and have a go.”

Evans explains that he works closely with TNT producers to plan promotional activities into the coverage.

“At the last Series we, through TNT, organised an advert that was shown on screens during innings breaks,” he says. “It let spectators know that if they were interested in taking up baseball to go to a link and express that interest. After the games we got those names and passed them on to the local clubs. In addition, we organised interviews both at the stadium and in the TV coverage with people in the British baseball community.”

In addition, domestic players and fans were encouraged to attend the games wearing their club uniforms.

“If you are going to go then wear your jersey. So, if you’re sitting next to someone it could spark up a conversation as it is not the usual MLB club jersey,” Evans says. “It lets people know that there is a club near them and shows the wide variety of teams that there are in the UK.”

Two years in and the success of Evans’ marketing, branding and communications efforts are clear.

On X (Twitter), the BBF now has 7,500 followers, up 500 in the last 12 months. Facebook followers come in at 5,000, up by 1000 and Instagram followers are at 2,500, also up by 1000.

Visits to the BBF website have gone up from 18,000 to 19,000 and views are up from 140,000 to 152,000.

“There is growing engagement,” Evans says. “But it is a slow process for both the BBF and the clubs. We encourage clubs to do their social media work, using our and their own logos, and we have asked each of them to create a marketing and communications role. As for the future, we are looking at revamping our website but in terms of plans it is very much trying to get our name and sport more widely known. We want those people who have played other sports like cricket or tennis to take up baseball. We will also be doing more social media campaigns to attract more female and younger players. If you love Major League Baseball, then there is a local club for you. There is more to come.”

Spectator numbers are also “slowly but surely climbing,” but again, it isn’t the main focus.

“We are seeing more clubs being set up and more players with over 2,500 adults now playing it in the UK every year. We need to keep that growing and then we can focus on bums on seats,” Evans adds. “We want more people on and around the diamond.”

This article was taken from Transform magazine Q1, 2025. You can subscribe to the print edition here.