Major League Baseball Leans on Stars — and Hot Dogs — in Brand Expansion Push

Alex Weprin
·4 min read
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What do Bryan Cranston, Sebastian Maniscalco, Shohei Ohtani, Humphrey Bogart and hot dogs all have in common?

Major League Baseball hopes that they’ll all be getting you excited about America’s pastime.

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2023 is shaping up to be a year of change for the league, thanks to things it can control, like a range of major new rule changes meant to speed up the game, as well as some things that it can’t, like the challenges facing the regional sports network business.

The league thinks that now is a good time for a brand reset, thanks in part to those new rules that it hopes will add more “excitement” and “athleticism” to quicker-paced games, according to executives.

Hence the Breaking Bad star Cranston, sitting in an empty theater, telling viewers that the new rules will “free up the players to put on a show”; or the comedian Maniscalco touting the new limits on the infield shift; or New York Mets player Daniel Vogelbach (who has never stolen a base) contemplating a steal as his manager Buck Showalter puts his hands over his face (the league hopes the new rules will encourage more stolen bases).

“We made a real concerted effort to focus on players as well as celebrities,” said Chris Marinak, MLB’s chief operations and strategy officer. “These have been all over social media, and gotten a lot of great buzz. You’ll see them on some of the television spots that we have coming up throughout opening day.”

But the rule-change spots aren’t just about informing fans about what’s new this year. At the same time, the league is launching a new brand campaign that it hopes will “position our brand in a much broader, more welcoming way for both avid and casual fans to be talking about the unique aspects of baseball around the world,” per MLB CMO Karin Timpone.

The brand campaign, which MLB developed in conjunction with Wieden+Kennedy (the league’s new agency of record), features the tagline “Baseball Is Something Else,” with spots highlighting the stars, culture and even food of baseball.

“There’s a real interest between food and baseball,” Timpone says. “I mean, you’re gonna see a spot from the brand campaign that’s just about hot dogs, and it’s gonna make you laugh. There’s a connection to that, there’s a connection between baseball and music — not just the walk-up music but tight relationships between artists and players.”

The 60-second launch spot (called “Overture”) features an a cappella version of the William Tell Overture, as scenes from a stadium breeze by onscreen, from fans getting food and players warming up to first-pitch theatrics and an Air Force flyover. The only in-game footage closes out the spot, with Los Angeles Angels star Shohei Ohtani throwing a pitch.

The other two launch spots focus on the math and numbers behind New York Yankees star Aaron Judge hitting his 62nd home run last season, breaking Roger Maris’ record; and the hot dog spot Timpone noted, focusing on all the different versions of the ballpark staple that are available across the country, while the voice of Humphrey Bogart declares that “a hot dog at the game beats roast beef at the Ritz.”

The spots will run on TV and streaming, as well as in ballparks and locations like Times Square.

Timpone says that the brand campaign will be an “ongoing message” that will continue over the coming years, to bring in new fans and “to fuel our growth and attention to the game.”

At the same time, Timpone says the league wants to better highlight and feature the players. Athletes are already larger-than-life, and a number of NBA and NFL stars have leveraged their in-game success into off-field endeavors (see LeBron James’ entertainment efforts, or Travis Kelce’s Saturday Night Live hosting gig).

So in addition to featuring more players in its own commercial spots, the league wants to expand its efforts to help players develop their own brands.

“They are talent in the entertainment sense, not just talent in the athletic sense,” she says. “We’ve really, really made an effort to create the right system so that however they want to manage their brand, we’re here to help fan that flame.”

In a moment of change for baseball, the league is hoping that it can bring fans in, and keep them in the game.

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