Ben Ford

RIGHTS HOLDER PROFILE

Perfect Game has been contributing to the sport of baseball for so long, how are you working with your partners to grow the game?

From our inception, we’ve worked hard to expand our reach into various communities throughout the country as currently roughly 80% of our events take place at facilities we don’t own. We’re focused on ways to make the game more available to a wide variety of participants and creating an experience of competition amongst

athletes. All the while, specifically emphasizing the importance of academics and athletics.

How is Perfect Game looking at being part of the process to transition to other tourism metrics in addition to room nights?

We value our strength of creating a significant impact on tourism. Most importantly, this comes from our focus on being a partner with destinations, not just a client. Whether it be from our kids clinics, involving at-risk youth or our inclusion of Major League Baseball player appearanc

es at our events, there are a wide variety of ways to incorporate the value of local citizen’s participating in our projects.

We’re extremely proud of our part time employee program across our event weekends and the value it creates within a local community. Also, with room nights being the primary indicator of success for many of our partner communities, we are working with our host communities to outline an additional direct spending component and to share the estimated economic impact of our events.

Fun personal questions

Where would you most like to live?

On some remote tropical island somewhere.

What’s the most prized possession you have in your office?

A photo of my son when he was a newborn.

What is your favorite sporting event annually?

Probably the Super Bowl just because I appreciate all of the work it takes to put that together and how hard it is for the teams to not only get there but to actually win it.

From the outside looking in, it seems that athlete development has been the main key to your success, what activities contribute to that effort?

We are confident our digital footprint has a significant impact on our ability to drive athlete development. Our athlete demographic is between the ages of 10-18 years old and they are enormously engaged with various technologies. 65% of our participants are from from out of market, so we must maintain a consistent level of outreach that stimulates their interest. This year, we’re looking into several methods to continue that digital outreach from working to live stream every game of every tournament on our PerfectGame.TV channel to exploring eSports platforms, we’re hoping to lead our space in new technology, if it’s the right fit.

What goes into facility selection for Perfect Game to “push the button” on tournament placement?

Our core values start with a handshake. Once our Perfect Game Operations Team has an understanding where we in partnership with a host can mutually benefit, the solutions start to become evident. Signature facilities are always preferred for our various Perfect Game Showcases and certainly baseball and softball fields that are in clusters are preferred. Some of our signature events utilize as many as 60 baseball fields.

Facility development and management seems to be an area of growth for Perfect Game, what are your plans for expansion in 2020 and beyond?

Our plans are to incorporate regional strategies to drive events to our National Headquarters in Hutto, TX, outside of Austin. Our efforts to expand into more cities throughout the country and develop the appropriate facility partnerships will be part of that growth. There will be a combination of criteria based on flight service, roadway infrastructure, lodging partners and facility development.

What’s impressive about Perfect Game is your focus beyond tournament play, how did you build the scouting division and how do you measure its success?

Our scouting department has been built with great pride from our founder Jerry Ford, who himself was a scout and coach. It was his vision and dedication that created Perfect Game and has grown it to what it is today. He helped handpick all of the scouts in our organization. Above all we are baseball guys who have a passion for growing the game and helping players achieve their success. The biggest way we measure its success is by the popularity and reliability of all our reports and rankings. They are the most trusted scouts in the business.