How new tournament director plans to return NBC World Series to ‘can’t-miss’ baseball
A changing of the guard took place Thursday afternoon at the Wichita Baseball Museum at Riverfront Stadium, as the National Baseball Congress announced a change in leadership.
Katie Woods, who was named Female Executive of the Year three times during a 13-year career as an executive in Minor League Baseball, was announced as the new tournament director of the NBC World Series, replacing Kevin Jenks, who had served in the role since 2014 and is now president of the Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission.
In her introductory press conference, Woods said her goal was restoring the two-week summer baseball tournament into a “can’t-miss” event for the Wichita community.
“Everyone I’ve talked to in Wichita has an NBC World Series story,” said Woods, a native of Washington. “They remember being a bat boy when Mark McGwire came to town or waiting for autographs from the Stars or they were here for Baseball ‘Round the Clock when it was 5 a.m. and the lights got turned off in the seventh inning because the sun was coming up. They remember dancing Charlie or Mike Dean playing the harmonica.
“The memories of the NBC World Series are ingrained in Wichita and our goal is to bring those memories and many more to the next generation of NBC fans.”
Arguably the most important challenge facing Woods, the first female tournament director and ninth all-time in the tournament’s 88-year history, is establishing a long-term home for the NBC World Series, which has been at various locations since the demolition of Lawrence-Dumont Stadium in 2018. The tournament was played in Hutchinson and Wichita State’s Eck Stadium this summer.
Many in the Wichita baseball community would like to see at the very least the championship week of the NBC World Series be played at Riverfront Stadium.
While an agreement couldn’t be reached with the Wichita Wind Surge, the minor-league team that controls what is scheduled at the downtown ballpark, Surge CEO Jordan Kobritz was open to the possibility of working out a future deal in 2023 and beyond.
“I think (a healthy relationship between the two) is really important,” said Woods, who worked as director of marketing for the Wind Surge last season. “The NBC has been here since 1935 through multiple affiliated teams and unaffiliated teams and has always coexisted and thrived more when they worked together. We look forward to making sure that happens again.”
But that’s far from the only thing Woods is focused on before next summer’s tournament.
With a decade-plus experience of marketing and fan engagement in Minor League Baseball, Woods wants the NBC World Series to return to its roots and embrace the vision founder Hap Dumont had for attracting fans.
“We have this opportunity to do fun, crazy, wacky, zany stuff,” Woods said. “That’s the heritage of the NBC. There’s this baseball tradition that’s so strong, but there’s also an opportunity for us to try something new and fun. We want to make this event something that everybody in Wichita says, ‘I have to go to this’ because they want to be a part of it.”
That’s a big reason why Jenks believes he has found the perfect replacement.
“One of the best pieces of advice I’ve been told is, ‘Hire people that are better than you’ and I believe that’s what we’re doing with Katie,” Jenks said in the press conference.
“For the NBC to move forward and improve and grow, Katie is the right person because she has a much better understanding than when I took over,” Jenks later expanded to The Eagle. “I was more focused on the traditional baseball stuff, and she understands that part, but the difference is that today’s players want to know how hard they’re throwing and their exit velocity and I just can’t comprehend that because I’m old school. She’s the perfect combination between the two.”
Woods also understands the importance of attracting and highlighting a quality field in Wichita.
After 10 players who played in this year’s NBC World Series were drafted in the first two rounds of the 2022 MLB Draft, she wants to promote the talent level better in the coming years. And that means attracting more teams and better talent from around the country to make the tournament feel like a true national championship-quality field again.
“People don’t realize the caliber of players and how many future major-leaguers that are playing here in Wichita every summer,” Woods said. “We want to improve the competition level, whether that’s getting international teams to come back or bringing back regional tournaments across the country to make sure we’re bringing in that top-tier talent.”
This story was originally published September 9, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
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