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All-American Girls Professional Baseball League: Difference between revisions

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The AAGPBL received extensive publicity from its inception throughout the 1940s. The league was featured in national periodicals such as ''Time'', ''Life'', ''Seventeen'', ''Newsweek'' and American Magazine'','' as well as in local city newspapers. Philip Wrigley, the league's founder, believed in the value of advertising, which may have contributed to the league's extensive exposure and marketing focus. Wrigley learned to appreciate advertising from his father, William Wrigley, who had success with his chewing-gum company in large part due to marketing methods. The league remained under Wrigley's advertising influence until 1951, when individual team directors took over the publicity.<ref name="auto1">{{cite book |last=Fidler |first=Merrie A. |chapter=Establishing the Public Image: Publicity and Promotion, 1943–1944 |title=The Origin and History of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League |pages=50–68 |location=Jefferson, NC |publisher=McFarland |date=2006}}</ref>
 
The league's principal advertising agent was Arthur E. Meyerhoff, who handled the league's publicity from 1943 through 1950. Meyerhoff's promotional efforts focused on the value of national exposure in popular periodicals. These magazine articles attracted new fans and new players to the AAGPBL. The major publicity themes that characterized the league were "Recreation for War Workers,", "Femininity,", "Community Welfare,", and "Family Entertainment.".<ref name="auto1"/>
 
The league shifted to decentralized league administration from 1951 to 1954.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.aagpbl.org/history/league-structure|title=League Structure |website=All-American Girls Professional Baseball League}}</ref> Thus, the responsibility was on individual team management to publicize and promote the teams. However, local managers were not always effective due to their lack of expertise in advertising. In the 1951 season, league president Fred Leo asked all team presidents to provide publicity on games and training events. Only one team complied with Fred Leo's request, which led to an early 1952 preseason board meeting to discuss inadequate promotion.<ref name="auto">{{cite book |last=Fidler |first=Merrie A. |chapter=Decentralization of Publicity and Promotion, 1951–1954 |title=The Origin and History of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League |pages=136–142 |location=Jefferson, NC |publisher=McFarland |date=2006}}</ref>