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Twenty years ago, a sunny 32-degree day in Cleveland would elicit calls from customers asking why the batting cage at Swings-n-Things was closed. “Those were the purists,” recalls Tim Sorge, owner and president of the Ohio family entertainment center (FEC).
In the two decades since, Sorge has watched his batting cage evolve from a place for serious practice to a recreational outlet. “When we first started [in 1982], a lot of high school players and Little Leaguers would use us exclusively as a place to practice,” he says. However, the advent of baseball academies—indoor facilities where players receive personalized instruction—cut into Sorge’s market considerably, making teams less viable targets. “We certainly still get use from high school teams and we contact teams…but we market the batting range more as part of our fun park,” he says.
A former college baseball coach, Sorge opened Swings-n-Things in Olmsted Township as a freestanding batting cage and through the years has used it as an entry point to expand into the FEC business, adding miniature golf, go-karts, bumper boats and a host of smaller amenities attractive to families.
Nationally, batting cage owners may not be seeing the same market trend Sorge has witnessed on a local level, but statistics show that interest in America’s favorite pastime may be waning.
According to SGMA International’s Sports Participation in America (2004 edition), recreational participation in baseball grew nearly 5 percent between 2002 and 2003 but the sport has experienced a 27.8 percent loss in overall participation—or 5 million recreational players—since 1987. “Baseball has experienced significant erosion in the number of players, but this has come most dramatically among casual participants,” reports SGMA. “The pattern of reduced participation on teams is also evident in the decline in league softball play among adults.” And although the number of girls on high school softball teams has risen 63 percent from 1990 to 2002, this growth “has not been strong enough to replace the loss of adult league players or the millions of players who once enjoyed softball in parks, backyards and vacant lots,” notes the SGMA report.
So if more team players are opting for training academies as Sorge has observed, and pickup play and overall participation are on the decline, which marketing strategies will work best for batting cage owners?
For many, building adjacent amenities to attract a broader, diverse crowd is a lucrative business move. “If you have an FEC, you now have enough attractions to get people to spend a day or the better part of a day here,” says Sorge.
Driving range owners already have one attraction under their belt, and some long-time industry veterans like Sorge and Ralph Perna, a range owner since 1980, have discovered the economic synergy of pairing up amenities.
“I’ve learned that the more you add to the recreational facility, the better it is,” says Perna, manger and co-owner of Pop’s Golf & Batting Center in Sarasota, Fla. “If you have a self-standing range or batting cage, you’re limited to just that energy, but as you keep adding on profit centers, there’s a synergy that develops. What you enjoy is a total package and, ultimately, that’s the definition of a family entertainment center.”
Perna purchased Pop’s in 1999, bringing the name of his former West Palm Beach FEC with him. “We always had our sights on expanding into a family entertainment center,” Perna says. But the original 15-acre site was just enough for the existing range and the addition of a six-station batting cage in 2001. “A batting cage requires much less land so it was a chronological order of priority,” he says. Since building the cage, Perna has added seven adjacent acres to his long-term land lease and in late winter, broke ground on an 18-hole miniature golf course, go-kart track and bumper boat pond. But before those open, he’ll turn his attention to spring—and baseball season—to develop strategies for maximizing the profit potential of his batting cage. Other owners can follow Perna and Sorge’s lead in implementing a few creative ideas to encourage local players, novices and teams to come out and hit a few balls.
Sell family time. With an influx of families in Southwest Florida, Perna says FECs provide a preferred place for youth to spend their free time and a venue for families to spend time together. “You’ve got these families that are moving down, and they just don’t have the types of support systems that they have up north, so the kids either go to the beach or they go to the mall,” he says, noting that businesses working to create a family atmosphere have been welcome additions. It’s just a matter of making the facility profitable for the owner and functional for the community, Perna says.
Batting cage owners can reach families by distributing free passes through the school system, running ads in local papers that show mom, dad and the kids at the batting cage having fun or by offering a free father-and-son (or mother-and-daughter) clinic.
By way of example, the banking industry has developed several out-of-the-box strategies for reaching parents, including “Family Friendly Fridays.” According to Independent Banker Magazine, this effort is geared toward working parents who need to fit in a loan or mortgage application after day-care pickup. From 5 to 8 p.m., banks make loan personnel available and provide art projects, healthy snacks and storytelling for the kids.
By offering parent-friendly packages such as dinner (nothing says baseball like hot dogs), batting cage tokens and an ice cream treat afterward, batting cage owners can employ similar tactics to get mom or dad to pop by after work for some recreational time with the kids.
Offer celebrity clinics and demos. Local celebrities, whether it’s the high school baseball star, minor league players or a pro who’s home during the off-season, can create a draw for one- or multi-day baseball clinics, as well as free demo events. Hiring the high school or minor league team’s mascot for photos can add another element of fun and is sure to be a hit with kids.
Sell passes. Owners of facilities with multiple amenities can sell half- or full-day passes that include batting cage use to build business as well as an awareness of the baseball amenity. Sorge at Swings-n-Things says passes provide multiple benefits:
• They raise per capita spending. Passes “doubled our food sales,” he reports.
• They increase the facility’s drawing radius. “People equate how far they will drive to a destination based on how much time they’ll spend there,” Sorge says. “If you can extend that stay, you can extend that drawing radius.”
• They are attractive group sellers. Sorge came up with a 3 1/2-hour weekday summertime day camp special. The backdoor benefit is that campers will come with $5 or $10 in their pocket, which turns a $9.99 deal into a $15 to $20 sale for the facility.
• They’re great consignment sellers. “We sell a ton of tickets through the local AAA office,” says Sorge.
Another option is to set up a reward program for frequent hitters. Pop’s Golf & Batting Center issues a value pass that awards cardholders with free tokens after multiple visits to the batting cage.
Don’t overlook teams. Depending on the market, Little League players and organized teams can be good customers. Offer coaches discounted cage time and attend tryouts and practices to distribute buy-five-get-five-token coupons. Both are effective ways to promote batting cage use. And don’t forget about girls. Fast-pitch softball has become the second fastest-growing major team sport for high school girls, according to SGMA. Among frequent (25-plus days/year) fast-pitch players, 65 percent are female. “You can reach affinity groups fairly efficiently and that’s the value,” says Sorge. “When you can reach any target market easily, it makes it more efficient. High school teams, girls’ softball, Little League—there are usually fairly simple means to reach them and get the word out.”
Other creative marketing promotions include home run derbies, which add a dimension of fun and competition with contests to see who can hit the most home runs, and MVP cards, where customers can buy, for example, $50 worth of tokens for $30. Traditional upselling techniques can also hook customers with deals such as 10 tokens for the price of eight or 10 tokens with a coupon for a free drink from the snack bar.
“We still use the local paper and we do coupons that we target out to our ZIP codes,” says Perna. Several coupons have successfully cross-promoted the range and batting cages, creating that magical synergy that Perna says a multiple-amenity facility creates. “You have a customer who comes in to use the driving range, then you add batting cages and that same customer comes in and maybe brings his son who uses the batting cages.”
A batting cage is a great attraction because people equate baseball to what’s best about America—as in “baseball and apple pie,” Perna says. Sometimes it just takes a little more marketing effort to get them out swinging.
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