Swinging Bunt
Addicted to Softballfans
You have plenty to contribute. You did right passing on the Horween. They haven't done it completely right, yet. The Easton SBF Horween Small Batch is doing it better at the moment. Timberglaze was a better option IMO. It would be hard to pass up on HSW (especially since the likelihood of shelfing such a rare chance is high).
I don't know who is running the actual Rawlings IG account, but it didn't seem like there was much coordination. They have more followers than the attendees combined so they naturally have the largest platform. So they could have broke the news of the summit and that they were going to be selecting the attendees from their own followers (obviously everyone chosen this first time was already following). Then have the invitees start posting their tickets. My teammates following Rawlings didn't even know about it even now. Instead Rawlings randomly posted videos with zero context. I would be surprised if the average kid/guy just glossed over those video posts. Only glove enthusiasts were able to piece the fragmented information (I'm glad both you and the glove room guy provided some narrative). Instead what happened (and anyone here that didn't attend should correct me if this a wrong assessment) is Rawlings created a gap instead of bridging things. Whether they intended it or not, they didn't make their glove operations closer to the masses but rather elevated a select few (if you're not part of the summit, you don't matter). Now the initial message Rawlings clearly made (which they can remedy in the future) is if we ever want even the slightest chance to be part of a Rawlings summit or sniff the factory, we need to have at least 10,000 followers on IG. So while it's easy for the attendees to say how accomodating Rawlings is, they are far from accomodating to everyone else unless it is at the expense of their competitor (botched Wilson Wednesday winners come to mind here). Thankfully we have Chad making things actually happen for us here (despite us probably being more of a headache for him lol).
If Rawlings wants to reach the younger demographics, they can start by looking in the mirror and compare how Wilson promotes polished Glove Day videos versus their summit coverage (and Rawlings University videos). Night and day. Wilson has a guy that speaks broken english (nothing wrong with that but I'm just pointing out that even with a language barrier hurdle) and like 5 MLB players promoting their brand is attracting a larger group of kids over a company that has over 70% (or whatever percent) of MLB players (which include even bigger and more popular names than Wilson's group) and equipped with possibly a stronger set of resources. Whoever is in charge of marketing at Wilson is like an elite sniper compared to the buckshot Rawlings has on payroll (no offense intended to whoever they are but they aren't showing the efficiency with the firepower and muscle Rawlings has at their disposal).
