Washington Nationals: Swinging Away
Media-Entertainment
Written by Eric Slack   
Thursday, 01 May 2008
Washington Nationals: Swinging Away - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Stan Kasten tells us how the newest team in the majors is building for the future on and off the field.
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Baseball is our national pastime, but Major League Baseball (MLB) has a dubious past in our nation’s capital. Two Washington Senators franchises left, first for Minnesota in 1960, then for Texas in 1971. Only one World Series title came to DC way back in 1924. But today the promise of success in the heart of the nation exists with the Washington Nationals.

Washington Nationals: Swinging Away - American Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Stan Kasten,
“What happened here almost 40 years ago is not relevant to today’s circumstances,” said Stan Kasten, team president. “The market, the game, and the business have all changed.”

The Nationals were born in 2005 when MLB moved the Montreal Expos. In mid-2006, the Lerner family became owners and brought Kasten on board. Kasten’s experience in Atlanta as one of the people who built the Braves into a powerhouse, and returned hockey to the area, gave Washington the experienced leadership needed to get the franchise off to a good start. In fact, all of the team’s senior management has vast experience in sports, many outside of baseball.

In its first year, the team brought in more than 2.7 million fans to home games. Attendance declined in 2006 to 2.1 million and just below 2 million last season. Two key factors hurt attendance; the team struggled on the field and played its home games at the old RFK Stadium. But with a new ballpark part of the relocation plan from the beginning, the franchise erased one of those problems this year.

Home sweet home
Nationals Park, a $611 million state-of-the-art entertainment facility, hosted its first regular season game on March 30th. Third baseman Ryan Zimmerman christened the park in style, belting a walk-off home run to give the Nats a 3-2 victory over the Braves. After seven home games, the team was 50,000 fans ahead of last year’s attendance stats. The ballpark is a crucial piece of the Nationals long-term success. It was financed through a variety of sources. Ticket taxes, contributions from the team, and taxes on local businesses were the principle methods.

The new park has everything RFK did not. It is designed to bring fans as close to the field as possible with sightlines angled toward the action. A gigantic outfield scoreboard helps fans follow the game. The team brought in a new vendor to improve ballpark concessions, everything from the hawker in the stands to private upscale catering areas. The Lerner family also put up more than $50 million to make the stadium more exhilarating. Entertainment pavilions with bars, restaurants, games, and music throughout the ballpark vastly improved the overall experience, which Kasten believes will pay dividends over the long haul.

With a 30-year commitment to the city, the franchise needed the stadium to grow. Team leadership has extensive experience in the industry, and after having seen virtually all major arenas in the US, has a pretty good idea about what amenities fans appreciate. The lead architect, HOK Sport, has designed almost a dozen major league stadiums, bringing a sense of what modern stadiums need.

The ballpark also allows the club to be involved in business ventures it couldn’t consider at RFK. Luxury suites, high-end seating and catering, off-day ballpark events, and fancy sponsorships are all potential moneymakers for the team and will only enhance Nationals Park’s reputation as a premier sports and entertainment facility. Even the Vatican took notice, as Pope Benedict XVI held mass at the park during his recent US visit.

The on-field performance is more difficult to address, but the club took steps to build for improvement and success. Baseball isn’t a sport where one draft pick or trade can immediately turn a team into a contender. It is based on the strength of an organization’s scouting ability and farm system. Through an aggressive program of hiring reputable scouts and coaches, as well as expanding budgets for signing and scouting players, the club improved its foundation so much that Baseball America moved the organization from 30th to ninth in terms of farm system strength in just two years.

“Those efforts will impact the major league club. The growth of our minor league system puts us in position to provide a pipeline of players every year,” Kasten said. “Then we can put in the final pieces, perhaps through trades or free agency, but we can’t take those steps without the infrastructure in place.”

Building a legacy
The final piece to DC’s baseball puzzle is building a brand and connecting with the community. The club offers tickets for every price range and demographic. Through full season, half season, and partial season ticket packages, the team is up to 11th in MLB in terms of season tickets sold. Offering luxury options for big spenders and corporate partners is carefully balanced with $5 tickets, civic groups, and local little leaguers who just want to come check out a game.

“If we rely only on hardcore fans, we might get a million tickets a year, but we need more than that. We need an active army of sales people reaching out in as many ways as possible,” said Kasten, noting sports teams have no problem attracting job candidates because of the attraction to show business, despite irregular hours. “We are trying to capture fans on both ends of the spectrum and everywhere in between by appealing to different groups.”

Another key to brand identity is an extensive community relations program throughout DC and into Virginia and Maryland. Players are expected at one appearance a month, and the team takes part in hundreds of appearances annually by players and representatives. It also has an active charitable foundation, the Washington Nationals Dream Foundation, which partnered with Children’s National Medical Center to build a new pediatric diabetes care unit. It is also building MLB’s third urban baseball academy, and is part of the Neighborhood Initiative, which involves contributions to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington’s Hopkins Branch and to the Earth Conservation Corps, both of which are in Southeast Washington near the park.

“All large companies of prominence should be good neighbors and active community-minded partners,” Kasten said. “It is the right and moral thing to do, and it is also a good business decision because whenever we do an appearance, in or out of season, we are connecting with the customer.”
 
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