NBC World Series ready to show what it can do on its own

The analogy, in Kevin Jenks’ mind, goes like this: Uproot an 80-year-old house, move it somewhere and put it on a new foundation.

“Then we also need to rip off the siding, then we’re going to gut it because it needs new wiring,” Jenks said.

Fix it up, throw on a new coat of paint and you have the 81st National Baseball Congress World Series, which begins its two-week run Friday at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium.

The tournament for collegiate and non-professional teams is old, but it’s new. A casual fan may see no differences, but general manager Jenks is banking on teams and longtime fans seeing improvements.

“I want people to come out in 2015 and say, ‘Wow,’” he said.

It’s the first time the city-owned tournament has been run by the NBC Foundation, an 11-person board charged with keeping it going after severing ties with the Wingnuts minor-league team, the stadium’s main tenant.

The board hired Jenks, who hired a four-person staff, and for the first time since 1988, a group became full-time stewards of the National Baseball Congress. No splitting time, resources and office space with the minor-league tenant.

“That makes a tremendous difference,” said board president Steve Shaad, himself a former NBC general manager.

The on-field product won’t change – for now. But off the field, expect to see more sponsor advertising – but no more free tickets.

“I probably spent more time this last year as a general manager than as a tournament director,” Jenks said. “We had to get more partners and more sponsors on board. We needed folks to see this more as a community event.”

“Community event.” Jenks seemingly can’t go three sentences without using those words.

“We are Wichita’s longest-running community event,” he said. “We are selling a tradition.”

And now selling it full-time.

On its own

Uprooting the house has meant some minor and major headaches. Not being located at Lawrence-Dumont Stadium creates inconviences, and Jenks doesn’t know how many times he’s explained to potential sponsors that the NBC and Wingnuts are no longer part of the same sales package.

Then there’s the stuff that no NBC general manager had to worry about for 27 years.

Use of a copier and printer. Obtaining a fireworks license. Designing a tournament program.

“Those ‘Oh crap’ moments?” Jenks said. “Yeah, I have a lot of those.”

The NBC will still lean on the Wingnuts for daily help in the stadium, but all other ties were cut.

Jenks fully expects to be blind-sided at some point during the tournament by a problem created by the separation from the Wingnuts. One major detail was handled, though.

“We had to get a safe,” Shaad said. “You need a safe when you’re parking some money right in some other business’ property.”

What teams want

Bill Pintard has been bringing the Santa Barbara (Calif.) Foresters to the NBC since 1995. His team’s five championships in the past nine years is a feat equaled in tournament history only by Fairbanks (Alaska) winning five from 1972-80.

But Pintard acknowledges that while his team was successful, the World Series’ quality had waned.

“The tournament had gotten stagnant,” said Pintard, whose team has won three of the last four titles. “It was kind of running itself.”

Tournaments in the early 2010s were hit hard by heat and rain, which kept fans away from the ballpark. There were good reviews of the 2013 and 2014 tournaments – the latter being Jenks’ first in charge – and Pintard was enthused when Jenks was hired by the NBC Foundation to continue the NBC’s work.

“Listen, everybody has a different idea of how to cook an egg,” Pintard said. “Kevin’s had a pretty good way of cooking it.”

Spending more time on raising revenue left Jenks less time to try to extend the NBC’s brand to summer leagues that haven’t been coming to Wichita. No teams from the popular Alaska League will be in the 30-team field, reinforcing the World Series’ problem of convincing teams to spend as much as $30,000 to come to Wichita when first place is worth $19,000.

“If we want quality, we have to change the purse,” Jenks said. “We have to find ways to make their expenses in Wichita less and that takes a community.”

Pintard said he’ll be looking at little things during the tournament – professionalism of the public-address announcer, the pitch clock working effectively, attentive ball boys.

“Paying attention to detail,” he said. “That’s a sign the tournament committee is being well-run.”

In the stands

Buyout nights, where fans get free general-admission tickets at area retailers, have been an NBC tradition since Hap Dumont created the tournament in 1935. But they’re gone this year in favor of five $1 nights.

“We tried to look at it from a fan perspective as well as a business perspective,” Jenks said. “If you’re able to enjoy two, three, four, even seven games for $1, that’s a pretty good deal and we hope people can relate to that.”

Research showed Jenks that on nights where fans could get free tickets, attendance went up by 1,000 fans, but they wouldn’t spend as much at the concession stand or gift shop. Those numbers were consistently better, he said, on full-paying nights.

The tournament will have more promotions this year, including nightly 50-50 raffles that gives half the winnings to a fan and half to charity. “Baseball ’Round the Clock,” where fans can sign up to watch 17 consecutive games over three days, begins July 31.

For the third straight year, fans will see essentially two 16-team tournaments. Twenty-nine games the first seven days will determine two teams that reach the final 16-team championship bracket. The Seattle Studs, El Dorado Broncos and Santa Barbara are three of the championship-week qualifiers and tourney staples.

After the championship game, Jenks and the NBC board can focus on the Series’ long-term health.

“It’s not at the level where we’d like it to be, but certainly for this first year being on our own, I like what we’ve done,” Jenks said. “But we’re scratching the surface of where we want to go.”

This story was originally published July 18, 2015 at 3:07 PM with the headline "NBC World Series ready to show what it can do on its own."