This infographic from SalesLoft is much about sales as it is about baseball (perhaps more so), but considering that professional baseball has become more of a business than a mere game, I’d say it’s pretty fitting. In this depiction, however, the job of the defense is backwards — in order to “close deals,” your goal is to help runners along the base paths so that they go all the way home. Hmmm, maybe Dan Michael should have thought through this analogy a little more.
Sports and advertising have been thrown together pretty much since the beginning. Here’s an infographic depicting a brief history of the relationship between baseball and advertising. Click on the image for a larger view.
Union Grounds, a ballpark located in Brooklyn, New York, hosted its first contest on May 15, 1862. Enclosed entirely by a fence, Union Grounds became the first ballpark to charge admission to watch the game. Non-paying spectators, meanwhile, could watch the game from embankments outside of the grounds (although, I imagine the view wasn’t as good). The Brooklyn Eagle described the ballpark:
The buildings occupied last winter are left standing, used pretty much for the same purposes as them.[sic] Near these a long wooden shed has been erected, capable of accommodating several hundred persons, and benches provided for the convenience of the fair sex… Several acres more have been added to the enclosure, which is fenced in with a board fence six or seven feet in height. On the southeast corner a large and commodious club house has been erected, containing accommodations for three clubs. The field is now almost a perfect level, covering at least some six acres of ground, all of which is well drained, rolled, and in a few weeks will be in splendid condition… Several flagstaffs have been put up, from which floated the banners of the clubs o’er shadowed by the nations’ ensign.
History’s first televised baseball game was broadcast by NBC on 26 August 1939. The Reds played the Dodgers at Ebbets Field and split a doubleheader, the Dodgers winning 6-2 in the first game, and the Reds taking the second game 5-1. The telecast was shown on experimental station W2XBS. Red Barber called the game for the television audience.
Only two camera angles were in place for the game: one down the third base line, and the other high over home plate in order to capture the entire field. And cameras, not nearly as advanced as they are today, had difficulty capturing any fast-moving plays. While baseball owners initially feared that television coverage would hurt game attendance, they quickly embraced the increased coverage and revenue that could be gained through the sale of broadcast rights and from advertising.
Today, televised sports is a multi-billion dollar industry.
Do what you love to do and give it your very best. Whether it’s business or baseball, or the theater, or any field. If you don’t love what you’re doing and you can’t give it your best, get out of it. Life is too short. You’ll be an old man before you know it.
