A fan buys their first ticket.
They show up. They have a decent time. They go home.
And then, for 80 to 85% of them, that’s it. They never buy again the next year.
That number stopped a room full of executives cold at the MLB winter meetings. And it’s just as bad in minor league baseball — often worse. Most teams look at it and assume they have a fan problem. They don’t. They have a follow-up problem.
Here’s the thing: your fans aren’t ignoring you. Your email is.
When someone buys a ticket, most teams do the same thing. Drop them on the newsletter list. Blast them two, three, sometimes seven times a week with every promotion on the calendar.
You know what that does? It quietly buries you in the promotional inbox — the one people open every morning just to delete.
The problem isn’t that you’re not sending enough. It’s that you’re sending everyone the same thing. A young family and a 24-year-old on a night out do not want the same email. When you treat them like they do, both tune you out.
Real segmentation isn’t pulling one list
Most teams think they segment. What they actually do is pull “last year’s theme-night list,” hit that one group, and blast everyone else the same generic message.
That’s not a strategy. That’s an exception to a one-size-fits-all strategy.
Real segmentation covers your whole audience first — night-on-the-towners, empty nesters, young families — and then goes deeper inside each group. Do your young families respond to discounts? Giveaways? A specific bobblehead? The data will tell you.
But you can’t sort hundreds of thousands of fans by hand every week. That’s where automation stops being a buzzword and starts being the only way this works.
What it looks like when it’s connected
The Nashville Sounds run a “set list” every Tuesday. Four emails go out — but any given fan only receives one, built for their group. They actually cut back from three sends a week to two, and engagement went up. Relevance beat volume.
The Beloit Sky Carp took it a step further with surveys. Not the once-a-year kind that collect the same complaints, but segmented, real-time surveys that surface warm leads the morning after a game. Someone tells you they want mini-plan info? That’s a hot lead on your desk tomorrow. Something went wrong? You fix it before they leave the ballpark.
Their win-back program now returns nine dollars for every one they spend. Historically, their marketing ran three, maybe four to one. Same team. Same budget. Better targeting.
What to do this week
- Pull your email list and count how many fans get the exact same message every send. That’s your one-size-fits-all bucket — and your biggest opportunity.
- Define three or four real fan segments. Start simple: families, night-out crowd, empty nesters, everyone else.
- Build one automated first-known-attendee sequence: thank you, learn what they like, invite them back.
- Send one real-time post-game survey and act on the responses within 24 hours.
- Connect your ticketing data to your email tool so you can see what’s actually driving purchases.
Want to know how your team stacks up? Book a free digital audit with Revelocity at revelocity.com.
🎙️ Watch the webinar: How Teams Are Automating Their Way to More Ticket Revenue