Trucking company Roadway Express is bringing baseball history on the road this season with a mobile version of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, and is using the campaign as a tool to drive its B-to-B logistics business and activate sponsorships of the museum and ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball.
The tour is making stops at the ballparks of 25 different MLB teams in which it does logistics and transportation business. In addition to entertaining clients, Roadway Express will open the museum to the public to promote the Kansas City, MO-based museum.
“We felt baseball was the best sponsorship platform for Roadway Express, and as a sponsor of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, we felt the Negro Leagues’ experience would add credibility with the MLB teams we’re working with,” said John Rowaday, principal at Chicago-based rEvolution, Roadway Express’s AOR.
The campaign runs through September, and features a customized 53-foot double-expandable trailer museum with artifacts on loan from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
Roadway Express works with the host team to bring former MLB and Negro Leagues players to the events and provides game tickets to attendees. The tour is averaging 300 to 500 client visits per stop, though attendance for the public events was not known, Rowaday said.
Roadway Express has promoted the tour through integrated partnerships with ESPN and Sports Illustrated. The tour gets on-air mentions during ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball and has a online presence at ESPN.com In addition, Roadway Express ran an advertorial piece in Sports Illustrated to promote its museum partnership.
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