Laurel Lindsay enjoys regularly taking her two small children to Major League Baseball games. And as vice-president of consumer marketing for the Toronto Blue Jays, she hopes other moms will want to do the same this season.

After years of declining interest among women, the Jays are trying to make this a turnaround year with a different marketing direction and more than $10 million worth of stadium improvements.

Interest among female fans had been slipping for more than a decade, according to team statistics. During the 1992 American League season - when the Jays won their first World Series title - 53 per cent of fans were men and 47 per cent women. Last year it was 70 per cent men and 30 per cent women.

On the field, the numbers last year were also grim with a season that saw the Jays win 67 games and lose 94 for a .416 winning percentage - their worst year since 1995 when they went 56-88 for a .389 tally.

www.paul-alexander.com / courtesy Toronto Blue Jays baseball
The Toronto Blue Jays rolled out a new artificial surface for their 2005 home opener, a 6-5 loss to Boston, before a sellout crowd of 50,560 at the Rogers Centre.

While overall attendance improved to 1.9 million in 2004 from 1.79 million in 2003, that was still less than half the levels of the 1992 and 1993 championship seasons, when more than four million people attended and sellouts were common.

As players were cleaning out their lockers last fall, it was obvious to most there would be changes.

One of the biggest changes came in February when team owner Rogers Communications Inc. announced it was buying the retractable domed stadium where the team played.

Rogers also ordered $8 million in changes to the giant video display system and another $2 million for new onfield turf. The stadium was even rebranded with a new name - Rogers Centre.

For her first season in charge of the team's marketing, Lindsay pulled most of the team's advertising out of newspaper sports pages, directing it to the entertainment and life sections. The team also began advertising on TV shows that are popular with women, such as Desperate Housewives on ABC.

"We want to be top of the list when women are planning activities to do with their families," she says. "Our studies showed women made a majority of the purchasing decisions and what to do during the family leisure time.

"It's like someone with a stock portfolio. Sometimes you can pay careful attention to certain companies in your stock portfolio, and not as much to others," Lindsay says. "We failed to nurture that female consumer."

During weekday home games, a special section of the stadium offering quieter sound and subdued lighting is available for mothers with babies. The team is also offering children a chance to run around the bases onfield after the game and meet players.

After a recent Saturday game, an estimated 600 children spent time on the field with safeguards in place to make sure they got safely back to their parents afterward, Lindsay says.

"They loved it," she says. "It really gives kids a chance to get involved in the experience."

Laurel Lindsay

Lindsay says 40 per cent of this year's budget is being spent on marketing to women, with 30 per cent to men and the other 30 per cent to teens. The Jays do not release the total dollar amount of their annual marketing budget.

Keith McIntyre, president of sports Marketing firm K.Mac & Associates marketing Inc. of Mississauga agrees that targeting women is a good strategy for the Jays.

"I have about eight or nine clients right now who are looking for ways to get to the female consumer," he says "They do have a lot of spending power and influence over how the family income is spent."

With more women coming out to baseball games, Lindsay plans on using them to attract another coveted and often hard-to-reach demographic - teens.

"The idea is that if they become loyal fans when they are in their teens, hopefully we can make them into season ticketholders as they get older," she says.

"This is planning for not only this year, but also the future."

Bob Stellick, president of Toronto-based Stellick Marketing and Communications, says reaching out to female fans is an "interesting strategy."

"Ultimately, they have to win some games, though," he says. "That's what counts the most."

www.paul-alexander.com / courtesy - Toronto Blue Jays baseball
First baseman Eric Hinske is tough to miss on the club's Jaysvision display during the American League home opener.

Lindsay says there were several reasons why fans, especially women, lost interest in their hometown baseball team after the Jays won their second World Series title in as many years in 1993.

A tense and difficult labour dispute in 1994 ended with a strike that caused the cancellation of the World Series. When the 1995 season got under way, the Jays were never able to return to their championship form.

The opening of the nearby Air Canada Centre in February 1999 and the arrival of the National Basketball Association's Toronto Raptors also are seen as factors.

The Jays finished the 2003 season with 86 wins and 76 losses for a .531 winning percentage, an improvement from 2002 when they went 78-84 for a .481 percentage.

But the upbeat 2004 advertising campaign - "You gotta see these guys play" - was not matched by their onfield performance as the Jays fell to 67 wins and 94 losses.

"Last year was an aberration," Lindsay says. "I can't control what happens on the field, but I can control and deliver an entertainment experience."

And it will be easier for the team to pull together that total entertainment experience this year now that Rogers owns the stadium, she says.

Games have about 24 minutes of pauses in play where fans need to be entertained. But in the past, because of complex contractual arrangements, the Jays had only eight of those 24 minutes available to them, Lindsay says.

"Someone would hit a home run and we would have to cut to a brand ad" because of a deal the sponsor made with the stadium owners, says Lindsay.

Now, however, the Jays have the full 24 minutes available to them and can flash a player's stats or picture up on the main screen.

Clowns, marching bands and celebrities will make the entertainment experience much more special for families this year as well, Lindsay says.

"Fans told us they wanted to bring the fun back into the game. They wanted to be entertained. I think we've really delivered on that this season," she says.

Getting insight into the female consumer is easier for Lindsay, one of the few female marketing executives in Major League Baseball, than some of her colleagues, she admits.

"I'm an exact fit for that particular demographic profile," she says.

The marketing campaign this season caught some observers by surprise because it included several Blue Jays players in a mock police lineup, which Lindsay says was a takeoff of the 1995 movie The Usual Suspects.

Lindsay says the Jays were aware of the timing, picturing players in the mock police lineup while a committee of the U.S. Congress was looking at steroid use among baseball players.

"It was never meant to be taken seriously," she says. "It was a joke and I think most people took it that way.

Marketing consultant Stellick says the steroid scandal has had little impact on Toronto's team.

"There are no big hitters here setting all kinds of records with asterisks beside their name that people are going to suspect (of drug use)," he says. "Jose Canseco played for the Jays a number of years ago, but he's barely a blip on the radar now."

McIntyre believes the Blue Jays could benefit from leveraging with other Rogers companies. "You could have Rogers Wireless do something involving cellphones with the Jays. There is a lot of potential. I believe this could be a good turnaround year for the Jays," he says.

(David Hatton can be reached at hatton@businessedge.ca)