How Did MLB Teams Engage Fans With Video During The Lockout?
This past winter, the Major League Baseball lockout lasted nearly 100 days. In that time, all 30 teams were barred from communicating with or posting content around active players.
While the communication aspect made it tough from an on-the-field standpoint as clubs were preparing for the upcoming season, a moratorium on social media content makes it incredibly difficult to stay engaged with another important team constituent—fans.
Because ultimately, what do you talk to fans about if not the team, outlook for the new season and expectations ahead? Well, MLB’s clubs needed to get creative.
Tubular Labs recently shared data with us diving into all 30 clubs’ social video presence (across YouTube, Facebook and Twitter) during the lockout, to see how they all performed given those limitations. Some excelled more than others, as you might imagine.
For starters, these were the top teams by social video views during the lockout:
Boston Red Sox: 31.5 million (up 210% vs. same period the previous offseason)
Kansas City Royals: 19.7 million (up 310%)
Los Angeles Dodgers: 16.5 million (up 2%)
Detroit Tigers: 13.5 million (up 207%)
Texas Rangers: 8.0 million (up 100%)
So without player-specific content where did these views come from? Overwhelmingly, video views for all 30 teams came largely from… previously posted content (that does feature current players).
Now, some clubs found success with videos posted during lockouts, too. For instance, the New York Mets went for volume, posting over 200 videos including this most popular one — a Robin Ventura highlight from back in the year 2000. The Seattle Mariners successfully leaned into videos of former team great Ichiro Suzuki after it was announced he was being added to their hall of fame. And the Cincinnati Reds garnered over 15% of the club’s 3.9 million lockout views from one Paul O’Neill video.
Even with those examples and others, though, many teams didn’t necessarily post much — or if they did, videos didn’t seem to gain much traction with fans, who were looking for club-specific content during a quieter-than-normal offseason period. Some clubs, like the newly renamed Cleveland Guardians, posted very little (just five videos in the timeframe). Including Cleveland, six teams posted fewer than 20 videos during the lockout, which is less than one every five days.
But whether teams posted a lot of videos or not, it was game highlights steering views forward for almost all of them. Without exception, Tubular data shows at least 50% of views for every club came from previously posted highlight videos, and all of the most popular videos actually published during the lockout featured former players. While fan messages might appear personal in nature, it comes as no surprise that the main reason those fans are following a specific team on social media is to see content directly related to playing baseball.
For MLB or another league faced with a similar lockout situation in the future, this may be a good reference point for how to handle content and keep those fans engaged. Teams own plenty of archive footage, and have posted plenty in the past as well. Reposting older game content and even promoting that content on social media to ensure eyeballs on it are great ways to stay top-of-mind for fans, lockout or not.
