5 Ways to Use the Baseball Season to Your Advantage

If you’re already a baseball fan you know the Major League Baseball season is 162 games. That’s just the regular season. It doesn’t count Spring Training games or playoff games. If you’re thinking, “Wow! That’s a lot of games.” You’re right – and that works to your advantage whether you’re a fan a not.

More importantly the baseball schedule works to your advantage regardless as to if you watch the games. Here’s what I want you to be thinking about – connection points and relationship building.

Before we go any further, let me back up a second and set the stage for this type of gameplan. I’ve been part of the Seattle Mariners television broadcast for 15 seasons. It is my job to be at, or watch, most of the Mariners baseball games throughout the year. Baseball is part of my job.

I’m all for more people watching baseball, but I also know it’s not necessary to watch every single game. You can still talk about a team or player without watching an entire game and you can still connect with fans without spending your entire weekend at the ballpark.

The length of the baseball season makes it easy to engage with sports fans without closely tracking games. It’s part of what makes baseball unique. It is the longest season, when measured by games played, of any sport. So, let’s use that to our advantage. 

5 Ways to Use the Baseball Season to Your Advantage

1. Calendar check-in dates. Stay on the radar of colleagues and clients by setting calendar reminders during the season. You could check in monthly between now and the end of the regular season in September. Sending a note at the All-Star break in mid-July is a good idea. The start of the playoffs in October is another natural check-in point and when the World Series ends you could ask what they’ll watch until next season.

2. Discover a new favorite player. If you want a new favorite player, commit to glancing at the headlines of your local team at least five times a week. The player(s) making the greatest impact will be mentioned frequently. You’ll get a sense of their personality in how they talk about games. Once you’re familiar with their name and on-field contributions you can dive a little deeper.

3. Set deadlines. You could say you’ll have the project done by mid-summer, or you could say you’ll have it done by the All-Star break in July. Bringing the baseball schedule into the conversation creates a stickier deadline for people to remember and provides additional touchpoints for conversation.

4. Schedule social time. If going to a game doesn’t sound appealing to you, maybe going to an outdoor party or cookout would. There’s a huge social component to baseball games. In addition, baseball is the only one of the four major sports that doesn’t have time constraints. There is no clock that counts down to the end of the game. That means games could last anywhere from two and a half hours to over four hours, or in other words, several hours to socialize and enjoy being around friends.

5. Background noise. Baseball games are the perfect soundtrack for summer. Slower paced games (when compared to hockey, basketball and football) lead to a more relaxed type of storytelling and broadcast. It’s great background noise. You don’t have to follow the action, but you might hear a couple interesting tidbits you can use in sports small talk.

I know baseball is a long season. I also know if you miss a game - or 12 - you’re not missing much in terms of the overall schedule. You’re not a “fake fan” if you only watch a handful of games or take a passing interest in baseball in general. You can be any type of fan you want, and I encourage you to be the kind who uses the long baseball season to their advantage in building relationships.

Jump in when you want. Join conversations when you can. If talking about baseball without watching games stresses you out the Talk Sporty 101 videos can help. So can signing up for our weekly Sports Conversation Starters that get delivered every Monday by 7am.