The Fantastic Freeze sundae avialable at Toledo (Ohio) Mudhens baseball games includes 15 scoops of ice cream.
Minor League Baseball combined the power of social media and the nation’s growing fascination with unique foods in their first-ever Food Fight, a competition pitting teams’ signature concession items against each other, with the winner decided by fan votes via Twitter.
“We got hundreds of thousands of votes,” said Martin Keely, senior vice president, partner solutions at Major League Baseball Advanced Media. The minor league’s past online campaigns include a mascot competition and “Moniker Madness,” a contest in which fans vote on players’ names to decide which is the most entertaining. Keely explained that Food Fight was Minor League Baseball’s most popular contest yet, garnering not only a large response from fans but also traditional media coverage nationwide.
The league asked teams to submit a unique food item and encouraged each team to promote Food Fight through their social media accounts. Sixty-four clubs were represented, many of them offering some of the most gluttonous and glorious plates the sport has ever seen. The West Michigan Whitecaps’ (Fifth Third Field, Comstock Park, Mich.) Fifth Third Burger was one of the largest contenders, weighing in at five pounds and 5,000 calories.
To market their items, some teams gave special discounts to encourage fans to vote or hosted eating contests. “Those sort of more over-the-top eating experiences were the ones that got more attention,” said Keely. “But ultimately, the winners of the contest focused more around what the teams did to activate promotion and encourage fans to vote. That made more of a difference.”
Fans voted by tweeting the hashtag #foodfight along with the team or dish’s name. Web traffic to the Minor League Baseball site went up as a result of Food Fight, according to Keely. “We have all-star ballots for players and things like that [on the website], but this was the most popular stand-alone initiative that we’ve done to date in seven-plus years of operating the minor league sites.”
The Runners Up
The Gwinnett Braves (Coolray Field, Lawrenceville, Ga.) were one of the runners-up, along with the Durham Bulls (Durham (N.C.) Bulls Athletic Park) and Lehigh Valley IronPigs (Coca Cola Park, Allentown, Pa.). The Braves’ Knucksie sandwich, a signature item in Coca-Cola Park named after pitcher Phil Niekro, came in first in the sandwich category. As an open-faced pulled pork sandwich served on corn bread with two different barbecue sauces, pickles, caramelized onions and coleslaw, the visually intimidating dish was a hit when shared on Vine, a video sharing service.
“The response was tremendous,” said North Johnson, Gwinnett Braves general manager. “It’s a great sandwich. [Our fans] are proud of it and they’re proud of our team, and they wanted it to be represented.”
The team’s Twitter account gained about 3,000 new followers as a result of Food Fight, according to Johnson. Along with tweets and videos, the team promoted the contest through a Dudes vs. Foods Night in which contestants scarfed down as many Knucksies as possible in a short time period. “It was amazing and disgusting at the same time,” Johnson laughed.
And the Winner is…
The Toledo Mud Hens threw their baseball cap in the ring with the Fantastic Freeze Sundae, made up of three flavors of Toft’s ice cream, with five scoops of each flavor. The ice cream is topped with whipped cream, hot fudge, rainbow sprinkles, peanuts and cherries—all served in a normal-sized Mud Hens helmet. The beast of a dessert took top prize in the Food Fight, which earned the team a four-foot tall silver spoon—and, of course, bragging rights.
“The Mud Hens have the most liked Facebook page in Minor League Baseball by almost double over the next highest team,” said Nathan Steinmetz, manager, online marketing and ticket sales for the Mud Hens. As of press time, the Mud Hens had about 60,700 likes on Facebook and more than 15,500 Twitter followers. The Reno (Nev.) Aces trail behind them in Facebook likes at just over 30,000.
“We certainly have some of the best fans in baseball. They want to know what’s happening with their team, at the ballpark. … The Toledo Mud Hens are known across the country, across the world, so the name recognition doesn’t hurt,” said Steinmetz of the team’s online popularity. As for what accounts for the team’s popularity, he added, “It’s important that when fans hear from us on social media, what they’re seeing is interesting and relevant and fun. … It’s easy to kind of drown out people or businesses that aren’t interesting.”
With a growing number of sports clubs hiring social media coordinators and consultants, Steinmetz explained, “It’s hard to believe that this is a relatively new technology. … It takes time and effort to communicate using it, but ultimately it is a free way to advertise. … And better than that, it’s a really effective way to communicate with our fans. Minor League teams are a lot different than those in the Major League in that it’s on a smaller scale and we’re able to really listen to what our fans are saying and communicate and engage with them on social media.”
The Next Course
The minor leagues have more contests planned to keep the momentum going. Another mascot competition is in the works, in which each team’s mascot will be featured online with a bio and short video, and fans will vote on their favorites. Keely anticipates that this contest will be even more popular than Food Fight, since mascots are a popular topic on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.
“We think that a lot of people will have a point of view about mascots in a way that food maybe didn’t resonate as much,” he said. “The contests are a fun way for the teams to be competitive off the field.”
Interviewed for this story: Martin Keely, (212) 485-8959; North Johnson, (678) 277-0340; Nathan Steinmetz, (419) 725-4410