At Saturday’s Durham Bulls home game, the Bulls players were nowhere to be found.

Instead, the Toros Bravos de Durham took the field to play against the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders as part of the annual Copa de la Diversión promotion night, which celebrates Latin and Hispanic culture and heritage through the alternate identity of the Bulls and special food and merchandise.

The Toros Bravos, or “brave Bulls,” are one of 92 Minor League Baseball teams that participate in Copa de la Diversión and were one of the first four teams in 2017 to begin the now-nationwide seasonal event.

Benjamin Hill, an MiLB newsletter writer who covers the business and culture of minor league baseball, said that in the Copa games he has been to, he has seen distinctive styles of food, music, uniforms and dancing incorporated into the team’s Copa activities.

“The larger premise is obviously just to celebrate, connect and engage with the region’s Hispanic fan base and to have a distinct identity, or an identity distinct from the usual day-to-day, that speaks to that community,” he said.

Many of the decorative themes include sugar and skull designs and Luchador masks, according to Hill, and teams also collaborate with local Hispanic community or business groups.

Hill also said teams will take into consideration the specific features of the area or the industries of the city in their marketing and merchandise.

“It’s like anything in minor league baseball, it kind of runs the gamut, because there’s so many teams doing so many different things,” he said.

Teams’ Copa games he has attended include the Fresno Grizzlies, Sacramento River Cats, Hartford Yard Goats and Worcester WooSox. He said each team has its own interpretation of Copa.

“Some teams will kind of do a bunch of different Copa nights and say, ‘This one, we’re really going to focus on Mexico, and this one really focused on Venezuela,’” he said, “If teams do have the diversity of those demographics in their market, sometimes they make it really specific.”

The Bulls’ Copa night was sponsored by Alpaca Chicken, which has worked with the team for the last three Copa games and will sponsor the next two.

Alpaca Chicken is a Peruvian restaurant chain with 17 locations across the state, three of which are in Durham.

CEO Sanjay Patel said his restaurant chain’s values align with the team’s, which led him to reach out to provide a sponsorship.

“Financially, it was a huge leap for us when we first started, but now we feel like the community is also part of us and supporting us, so it’s a natural fit for us,” he said.

Alpaca Chicken promoted its new mobile app and loyalty program with advertising throughout the game.

Sponsorships are equally beneficial to the teams as they are to local businesses, taking on the costs of items such as post-game fireworks, which can cost roughly $5,000, according to Greensboro Grasshoppers’ ticket sales manager, Dylan James.

He said businesses or organizations can buy season-long sponsorships or single night sponsorships, which can influence the theme of the ballgame that night.

While he said that kids’ theme nights tend to draw the biggest crowds, more people also attend appreciation nights for groups such as veterans or firefighters.

Each business pays roughly $3,500 per night, though prices can vary based on whether the game is on a weekday or weekend, time of year or holidays.

“We will sort of scale the pricing and a lot of the stuff we’ll sell a la carte and just package it together. We don’t necessarily package and do huge, huge discounts or anything, but, we’ll certainly take nights and theme nights and times a year into consideration,” James said.

He also said that while the Grasshoppers used to participate in Copa, they no longer celebrate the annual event, though he is wanting to bring back the theme to the season.

“I think it’s just a great community to reach out to, and an audience we haven’t necessarily targeted specifically, and it’s just growing, growing,” he said, “The more inclusive we can be here, I think, the better, just for the community, but I certainly think it would drive ticket sales, and the more people we can target, the better.”