Engaging with the Latino consumer remains a challenge, especially in sports. As we hit the halfway point of Hispanic Heritage Month and MLB readies for the playoffs, one company that is addressing that issue is TeamWorks Media and their 18-month-old platform La Vida Baseball. La Vida tells stories around baseball from the perspective of the stars of the sport to an audience that consumes media in both English and Spanish. We asked CEO Jay Sharman to explain La Vida’s success.
On the opportunity for La Vida Baseball in a crowded digital space: We believe passionately engaged members of a digital publishing community are more valuable than scaled content machines. The passion and thirst for baseball content by US Latino population, which is now nearly 57 million strong and growing, is quite an opportunity. We see the opportunity to build a robust, hyper-connected community that celebrates Latino baseball through much more than story. It’s a brand and an identity that we’re finding represents a positive commonality bringing people together at an important time in our country.
On connecting with the audience: The biggest success in building the brand came from our strong relationship with the actual MLB players who embraced our team from the get-go. Latino MLB players were so receptive since our team’s explained what we were trying to do and would interview them in English or Spanish on topics they cared about Additionally, player agents, MLB teams, and the head offices of Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball embraced what we doing. In an era of paid social media influencers, all of these constituents regularly share our content for us, because they believe in the brand and the stories resonate.
On the underserved Latino market for sports content: The digital media space was tailor-made to support passion niches and there was a gaping hole for baseball content geared specifically to the US Latino baseball fan. Few sports marketers seem to understand that the majority of US Latinos consume sports media in English. Nearly one of every three MLB players is Latino and it is one of the top three favorite sports among Latinos, yet there was no media entity giving a customized voice to the Latino baseball community.
On partners: Major League Baseball, the Smithsonian and the Atlanta Braves have all engaged us in the past year. We’re in conversations with several brands for marketing partnerships for 2019, now that we’ve achieved a consistently engaged audience that reaches 6 million US Latino baseball fans per month.
On How La Vida Fits Into TeamWorks Media: La Vida Baseball is one of three digital media publishing brands we run along with BTN (Big Ten Network)’s Live B1G brand and the International Tennis Hall of Fame’s new TennisWorthy brand we launched in July.
