Jonathan Jwayad

Interview

When I first heard spring training was postponed, I was boarding a plane to Arizona. It was an early morning flight and I had been thinking about everything that had happened. The NBA just shut down and my gut was telling me they were going to cancel spring training. Once I got off the plane, I saw the announcement that spring training was going to be suspended and the start of the regular season was postponed. I knew it was coming but it was still a gut punch. There was business to take care of in Scottsdale, so I continued my trip, but things weren’t the same.

Baseballism acted quickly. We started coming up with a clear plan assuming there would be no MLB and very limited retail. We predicted a 20 percent dip in online sales because even though people were going to be home, we weren’t sure how many were going to lose their jobs, what consumer confidence would be like, [and the effect of] the stock market crashing. In order to stay solvent, we created three levers. The first was cuts [layoffs and expenses]. The second lever was traditional debt. The third lever was investment to buy primary equity to keep us afloat. We laid off around 50 retail associates and 12 headquarters employees. Everyone was understanding of the situation, it was no one’s fault.

When we began making cuts and closing the doors, we didn’t pull the lever completely. We slowly started to shut doors in order to have more runway to stay solvent because every day that you’re open matters. There’s one part of you that says, “should we shut all these stores down? Are we adding to the pandemic by staying open?” The other side reminds you we have jobs to protect and everyday matters. We closed San Francisco first because the whole city shut down and then slowly closed the rest, with Scottsdale being last. It was a big hit there because the stores in Scottsdale generate $1 million dollars in the month of spring training.

With the stores closing, the managers consolidated the inventory we wanted sent back to headquarters. We diversified the revenue by taking city specific products you could only get in stores and making them available on our website. We’ve never done that to this scale and customers are excited because maybe they want the Chicago-inspired shirt but live in Alabama. Our online sales are currently up 20 percent despite our predicted 20 percent dip. When we realized we would be going all online, we had to come up with a new marketing strategy. Business 101 is ramp up our marketing spend since people are at home, so how can we get in front of them more often? Instead of advertising, we decided that content is king. We focused on viral videos, a challenge or something engaging. Immediately we initiated a plan to create unique content every day on social. So far that plan has been successful and even better, it’s free.

In addition to regular merchandise, we wanted something for the cause. How can we help? The design team created COVID-19 T-shirts that have a home plate inside of a heart and says, “stay home.” All of the proceeds are used to purchase masks in China to be brought to the U.S. and donated. Everyone wants a brand with a heartbeat, a brand with a mission, and an authentic brand, and we try to do that every single day. We knew that we could leverage our manufacturing relationships in China to get masks made. Once we secured that and we secured the design, we launched it and it's been awesome.