Credit: Eric Bolte/USA TODAY Sports

Minor league charm with major league merchandising options.

Major League Baseball’s ongoing agreement with the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues is set to expire near the end of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown a rather decisive monkey wrench into the mechanics of professional sports, as you could tell with the long-winded discussions between the MLB and the Minor League. While any deal they come up with right now would likely be drastically diminished until the pandemic is dealt with, the Major League is trying to extend some kind of olive branch to the little guys.

Yesterday, MLB named the independent Atlantic League its very first “Partner League.” What does that actually mean? Well, for starters, it means representatives from the Major League will begin meeting regularly with representatives from the Atlantic League to discuss ideas for making baseball as interesting as possible for the sports-hungry masses, as well as coming up with new ideas for marketing and merchandising. As to why they chose the Atlantic League in particular for this preliminary partnership, the Majors have actually used the Atlantic League as something of a testing ground for the last few years, workshopping new ideas for the game like rule alterations, automated strike zones, larger base plates, and pitch clocks. If they were going to try an experimental partnership program anywhere, it’d probably be the Atlantic League.

Credit: AP Photo/Julio Cortez

“We are excited to extend our relationship with the Atlantic League, which provides us a unique means to push the sport forward,” MLB executive vice president of baseball economics and operations Morgan Sword said in a press release. “The Atlantic League clubs and players have been great partners to us as we jointly test ways to make our game even more interesting and engaging to fans.”