The complete factor requires a behemoth effort, and never simply because Dyersville isn’t precisely the sort of place constructed to host a serious sporting occasion. Last yr, gamers flew into small Iowa airports and bused alongside nation roads the morning of the game. Fans parked in filth tons and noticed their step counts rise as they made their means by means of cornfields to get to the park, then drove winding roads again to faraway inns.
But after 2021’s wildly thrilling slugfest between the Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees, MLB determined to do all of it once more, this time with the regionally beloved Cubs and the game’s oldest franchise, the Reds. If MLB needed to broaden its attain in Iowa, there are simpler methods — corresponding to, for instance, lifting the printed blackouts that make it tough for the state’s residents to look at any of six “local” groups as a result of of conflicting tv offers. But MLB opted to make the journey — and the hassle — not less than another time.
“There’s no question it’s a lot of effort. Just getting there is an effort. Finding places to house people and transportation and all that sort of stuff,” stated Chris Marinak, MLB’s chief operations and technique officer. “But maybe the easiest way to answer is we had the highest rating of any regular season baseball game [in years]. You’re willing to put in the effort when you see results like that, when it cuts through the noise. We saw how successful that was.”
Something concerning the 2021 game appeared to stay. According to Fox Sports, it was the most-watched common season game on any community since 2005 and the most-streamed common season game in Fox Sports historical past. What MLB will discover out Thursday is whether or not it was the novelty of the game that made it so interesting or if one thing concerning the mannequin can proceed to grab followers’ consideration.
The “Field of Dreams” website homeowners, together with Hall of Famer Frank Thomas, have let MLB know that they will be unable to host a game subsequent yr as a result of of development plans, in response to an individual conversant in the scenario, who stated MLB would take into account going again to Dyersville in subsequent years.
But no matter occurs Thursday, MLB is already contemplating different, comparable event-style video games sooner or later, Marinak stated.
For instance, MLB has introduced that the Cubs and their largest rival, the St. Louis Cardinals, will play in a two-game series in London next June, the second such collection after the Yankees and Boston Red Sox performed there in 2019. The San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks had been scheduled to play video games in Mexico City in the course of the 2020 season earlier than it was shortened as a result of of the coronavirus pandemic.
And when MLB negotiated its new collective bargaining settlement with the gamers union this yr, the pact included a dedication to holding video games or excursions in Asia, the Dominican Republic, London, Mexico, Paris and Puerto Rico over the subsequent 4 seasons. Those video games, Marinak stated, might be much less concerning the occasion than the placement, much less about one explicit second than a broader effort to achieve out to new followers in new areas. In London, for instance, MLB staged a brand new competitors referred to as Home Run Derby X that pitted former main leaguers in opposition to each other this summer time.
“We’re looking at fans in international markets, and the game really helps cement a marketing initiative around that audience. London next year — that’s not done in isolation. That’s not a game where it stands on its own [like the ‘Field of Dreams’ game],” he stated, noting that like the Little League Classic, which MLB will stage in Williamsport, Pa., this month, worldwide video games might be related again and again as a result of MLB’s advertising to geographic or demographic teams continues yr after yr.
Marinak stated MLB is having conversations about different methods to tie event-style video games in nontraditional venues to different areas by which it’s attempting to broaden its attain. For instance, a report in Ballpark Digest lately advised that Bosse Field, the historic setting of the film “A League of Their Own,” is on MLB’s radar as a possible venue within the subsequent few years. During final yr’s “Field of Dreams” broadcast, MLB Network analyst Harold Reynolds pitched Hinchliffe Stadium in Paterson, N.J. — one of the final remaining stadiums to host Negro League video games — as one other interesting chance.
MLB wouldn’t affirm these venues as potential websites and Marinak stated that, as of Wednesday, it didn’t have agency plans for future video games. But he acknowledged that venues like these — places with sturdy baseball traditions — are the sort of locations MLB would take into account for occasions within the mould of, if not precisely like, what’s going to occur in Dyersville on Thursday evening.
“I have no doubt in the next handful of years we’ll have some of those type of games. We don’t have any firm plans on what that might be at this time, but we have active internal conversations about all sorts of ideas,” Marinak stated.
“Outreach to the African American fan base, Negro League history is definitely an area where we look to improve our engagement. I can see a game that fits into that area. Something around women in baseball could be something that makes sense,” he added. “Or things around certain geographies, certain areas of the country that have rich baseball histories and trying to bring a game there to bring life to those.”
What could develop into clearer after Thursday’s game is precisely how a lot urge for food baseball followers have for watching comparable occasions when they’re not distinctive. Though video games in unusual locations are sometimes seemingly to attract capability crowds — tickets for final yr’s “Field of Dreams” game had been going for 1000’s of {dollars} on the secondary market — they’re no certain factor to safe the identical type of nationwide tv curiosity when the stage just isn’t so novel and when the members are much less famed than the vaunted Yankees and star-studded White Sox.
But Marinak stated he isn’t apprehensive about saturating the market with occasions like these, largely as a result of they take an amazing deal of effort and preparation to stage — even at a spot the place MLB has beforehand held an occasion.
“There’s only so many shoot-the-moon kind of ideas. But when you hit one, you want to hit on it, and certainly the ‘Field of Dreams’ has fit into that category,” he stated. “I’m sure other ideas may surface in the coming years that fit that, and it’s a know-it-when-you-see-it thing.”