The Challenge

MLBPA is responsible for effectively communicating information to its player for everything involved from the start to the end of their career – from league news, to roster moves, to salary arbitrations, to licensing fees. At the time, all of these areas on the business side were hosted in separate platforms, and were dependent on manual data input across systems.

The operations of MLBPA involve many stakeholders – internal staff, players, agents, third party vendors. The challenge then became – how to we build a single system that can be accessed by a multitude of user groups that creates a single source of truth for all things player related.

The Approach

We worked together to devise a strategy on how we want to approach such a large initiative. First, we inventoried all processes and data that were involved at every touch point of a player’s career – licensing fees, salary arbitration, finances, roster information, etc. From there, we mapped out all of the different systems being used for these processes. That would enable us to find the major gaps and inefficiencies within the digital ecosystem.

Then, we began developing new processes to create a more holistic database – one that would be able to pull all data into a single player view. The goal was to be able to search for any individual player, and see any and all activity of his career – which agents he’s used, salary arbitration results, contract details, licensing agreements.

The Solution

Using the Microsoft technology stack, we built a robust platform that enables a holistic view of a player’s ‘journey’ throughout his career. Depending on what your role is, the system is designed to only display information relevant to you. For examples, agents will be able to quickly see previous salary arbitrations and contract details for their client, while sponsors will be able to see licensing agreements and fees. For the first time since in 20 years, the Association had access to data in a consolidated view.