Brauer Wants More Visibility For Prospect League

By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

David Brauer looked at his first season as the Prospect League’s commissioner as “Year 0.”

“Maybe it’s cliche,” Brauer said. “But your runway is short in the lead-up to the season. You’re trying to evaluate, trying to look at what you can implement quickly, and still have everything moving forward.”

That’s why this year in the college summer league will be the first step in what Brauer plans to be the continued progression of the league.

The league now has 18 teams in seven states with the addition of the Dubois County Bombers of Huntingburg, Ind., and the Full Count Rhythm of Hendersonville, Tenn. The 56-game schedule begins on May 28 and runs through July 31, with the postseason set for August 1-8.

There were 17 teams in the Prospect League, which meant there was at least one team with an off-day every day.

“We’re back to 18, which is good for scheduling,” Brauer said. “It makes sense. Certainly much easier. You don’t have that team that has the rotating off day. It works well for football, but for baseball it’s a little awkward.”

The 56-game season is down four games from last season, but Brauer said it’s a good number.

“That aligns with the college season,” he said. “It’s a good number. You want to be in that middle.”

Brauer noted how the Coastal Plains League plays a 48-game schedule, while the Northwoods League is at 70.

“I don’t think you want to go to either extreme, you want to be more in the middle,” Brauer said.

Brauer noted that in conversations with college coaches, the idea of a shorter season was one that appealed to them.

“They are most adamant about the calendar,” he said. “The game schedule is important, considering how condensed it is. We’re playing 56 (games) in probably 65 days. That was really the focal point for the college coaches, like, ‘Hey, let my kids get back on campus, or give them a little time to decompress.’ You’ve got to remember that these kids are 18 to 21 years old, so give them a little time to relax.”

Brauer pointed out how the league’s season starts within days after the end of the college season.

“When you come to our league, without much of a break, you’re really at game 56, game 57,” he said. “I don’t think people realize that. They think you walk into this league and it’s a whole new season, but it’s really not. It’s really just a continuation.”

The league set an attendance record with 575,294 fans last season. Ten teams in the league had increased average attendance, including the Burlington Bees, who drew an average of 1,026 fans last season, up from 1,011 in 2022 and 896 in 2021.

“To me, the biggest thing was our attendance record,” Brauer said. “There was tremendous support around the league. We were above 500,000 for the first time. You could easily point to it and say, ‘Well, you had two new teams,’ and doing the math like that. But realistically, the average attendance was up more than 200 fans in each ballpark, on average. That’s really encouraging.”

Brauer wants to build on that with increased marketing within the league.

“Now, it’s how can we tap into that and really engage the fans more, build the brand more, get the visibility out there,” he said. “I think social media engagement is what we want to focus on more this year, get our teams visible, not only in their market, but league-wide and nationally, so people know who the Prospect League is. I think there are a lot of great selling points.”

There are challenges in a league that has such a wide footprint.

“There are some holes out east,” Brauer said, noting travel for some teams is the biggest challenge. “How we fill that in in the future is something under consideration, something our directors talk about frequently. You want to make sure that you have the right markets, the ones that can be successful.”

Brauer knows the lure of the league to players is to get into markets that have been part of professional baseball in the past.

“I think, top to bottom, we’re a good league,” he said. “This league, I think you can get that game-day experience you can’t get at other places.

“We’re a college baseball league, but we’re wrapped up in minor-league packaging. You’ve got the Bees and the Clinton LumberKings with minor league backgrounds. You’ve got cities that were in independent leagues, cities with professional baseball histories. The more we can showcase the fan experience and the ballparks and what you see in the league talent-wise, then the reputation grows. It’s not an overnight fix, but it’s something you can keep stacking over the years.”

Photo: The Burlington Bees celebrate Caleb Wulf’s walk-off hit in a game last July. (Steve Cirinna/Burlington Bees)