Baseball beyond the bleachers: Angels target L.A. in marketing push.

Arte Moreno's buffed-up Anaheim Angels plan to take it to Los Angeles this year--both on and off the field.

The Angels owner, who counts Tuesday's game against the Seattle Mariners as the first opening day game under his tenure, has made an aggressive off-season play.

One of his goals is to bolster the team in its bid to take the American League West title. The other: Widen the fan base beyond Orange County lines.

Backed by the free-spending Moreno and fortified with several star players, the Angels are making what could be a risky pitch to reach baseball tans in Los Angeles County and beyond with a message: Come on down and see the A Team play.

An aggressive marketing campaign is under way, including TV commercials featuring two men wearing Angels jerseys and pasting the American League team's large, red "A" logo on Los Angeles-area signs, including ones in Malibu and at Los Angeles International Airport and Griffith Park. Pasadena, Azusa and other surrounding communities also get the ad treatment.

The campaign also includes billboards scattered across Los Angeles, stretching to the South Bay portions of the San Diego (405) and Harbor (110) freeways. Bus ads feature Angels players, including new slugger Vladimir Guerrero.

"What the Angels have been doing, really, is almost the equivalent of a sports marketing brushfire," said David Carter, a sports consultant. "The brushfire's jumped the 91 (Freeway). And if you're the Dodgers, you've got to be concerned that the Angels have jumped the 91 and they're very close to jumping the 105 (Freeway)."

Boost in payroll

Besides outfielder Guerrero, the Angels' major off-season free agent acquisitions included outfielder Jose Guillen and starting pitchers Bartolo Colon and Kelvim Escobar.

The payroll is about $110 million entering the season, up from $76 million a year earlier. Moreno, who bought the team from Walt Disney Co. last year for $184 million, has spent more than $145 million on future contract commitments.

With the Angels coming off a disappointing 77-85 record last year following their World Series win in 2002, expectations are high for a big year.

Angels' management wants "to reach out to anybody we can to let them know we want you to come to a baseball game--we want you to come down and see these great players," said Angels President Dennis Kuhl.

He deflected a request to compare the Angels' new campaign to what was done under Disney. "We just came in and did what we thought we should do," Kuhl said.

But the Angels' marketing strategy has several risks, including the possible dilution of the team's core Orange County identity at the expense of becoming more of a regional marketing play.

"You certainly can run the risk of disenfranchising your existing fan base," said Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon.

And it remains to be seen whether the big marketing dollars being spent by the Angels will pay off. To help gauge the success of the A Team campaign, the Angels plan to use a ticket-scanning device when fans come into Angel Stadium, allowing officials to find out where the tickets came from.

Kuhl downplayed competition with the Dodgers. "We're not trying to convert anybody," Kuhl said. "We heavied up (marketing efforts) everywhere. What happened, I think, is that it looks like we went heavy into Los Angeles."

Angels' management "really didn't say we're going to take all our money and go out to Los Angeles by any means," he said. "We made a market-wide buy--Orange County, Los Angeles, Inland Empire. We're not ignoring the fans down here. They're our base fans and we want more people from this area to go."

The Angels drew more than 3 million fans for the first time in their history in 2003. Some believe they could outdraw the Dodgers for the first time in the more than 40-year history of Major League Baseball in Southern California.

"I don't think this is about winning the hearts and minds of die-hard, loyal Dodger fans," Swangard said. "But it is (about) winning the hearts and minds of the people (who) can make a difference between a stadium being full and a stadium being half-full."