Why brands and big-box retailers are playing ball with Minor League Baseball

It’s been more than four decades since Corey Hart’s song “Sunglasses at Night” was on the Billboard charts, but the ’80s earworm would have been right at home at five Minor League Baseball stadiums in late June. It was tied to National Sunglasses Day, and sunglasses brand Goodr, as part of a multifaceted licensing deal with the league, hosted promotional nights that included Jumbotron messages and giveaways of glasses emblazoned with the teams’ logos.

Goodr has inked a licensing deal with Minor League Baseball, which, fittingly enough, has been taking big swings in the last couple of seasons when it comes to both partnering with retail brands and getting big-box retailers to carry its teams’ merch.

Minor league team merch is featured in 363 Walmart locations this year, up from 138 in 2025, a 163% increase, according to Joe Hutchinson, VP of licensing at Diamond Baseball Holdings, the league’s national licensing partner. This year, its footprint also has increased 118% at Costco (72 stores versus 33 last year) and 29% at Dick’s Sporting Goods (108 stores versus 84 last year).

Getting buyers at national chains to recognize the value of minor league teams’ fan bases, or even to know which stores are near their stadiums, was “definitely a challenge,” Hutchinson told Retail Brew.

He said his company undertook a “retail mapping exercise” to show chains how many of their stores were within 10 or 20 miles of a minor league ballpark and could potentially do a brisk business selling the merch.

Walmart revealed recently that in multiple markets it was carrying more local products, especially in its grocery aisles, with the aim of boosting sales and foot traffic.

With the affection fans have for their regional minor league teams, the argument could be made that it’s as important for national chains like Walmart to carry merch from the Rocket City Trash Pandas or the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp as it is to take on, say, a local pickle brand.

“The marketplace has become so much more focused on being the store of the community” and “they want to be locally relevant,” Hutchinson said. “They know that they’ve got fans coming in their doors…and Minor League Baseball fits perfectly into that dynamic for them.”

Covering the bases: Karen Lytle, director of product strategy at Goodr, said the brand had a natural affinity with Minor League Baseball because Goodr also embodies performance, value, and whimsy.

“We always felt like Minor League Baseball fit with us, because we are two brands that are serious, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously,” Lytle told Retail Brew. “We always have leaned into the fun and the absurd, maybe a little bit of the irreverent, but still being something that is very down to earth, like we used to say we were the sunglasses for the 5K runner as opposed to the marathon runner.”

Fans at the games “are looking for a family type of event that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg,” Lytle said. “It allows people to be themselves and express pride and feel good about what they’re doing, and I think that fits very well with who Goodr is as a brand.”

Goodr is making glasses with team logos for 15 teams, and along with partnering with teams that span the country, she said her brand gravitated to team names that were “really fun,” including the Richmond Flying Squirrels and the Toledo Mud Hens.

She said it’s a unique sports licensing deal for them because they’re able to do activations as they did with those five teams for National Sunglasses Day.

“We find a huge value in being able to get onto the stadium fields and interact with customers one on one,” Lytle said.

Along with being sold in stadium stores, the team sunglasses, which retail for $40, are available on Goodr’s website’s Fan Zone section, which also features products tied to teams in other leagues, including the National Women’s Soccer League, Major League Soccer, and Major League Baseball.

The licensing deal also helps Goodr expand its wholesale program, ideally landing new local retail locations in smaller markets with the team-affiliated merch, then persuading the retailers to also add a branded display rack that includes its non-licensed regular assortment—which Lytle refers to as “inline”—as well.

“[It’s] a way that we can get into some of these local retailers with our full product line,” Lytle said. “Maybe it’s just the Mud Hens that attracted them, but then they see our full breadth of product, and they decide they want to bring in a Goodr 30 rack, and then they’re selling our inline product as well.”