A First-Person Look at How Brands Left No Bases Uncovered During MLB All-Star Week

Just before the 8:20 a.m. Amtrak Cascades from Portland, Ore. pulled into Seattle on Friday at the start of All-Star Week, it passed the Starbucks headquarters on Utah Avenue and the massive Seattle Mariners flag flying above it.

Compared to the roughly five days of baseball branding that followed, it was subtle.

Seattle’s King Street Station was besieged by all things All-Star. Just to its west, a parking lot at Lumen Field—home to the National Football League’s Seattle Seahawks and Major League Soccer’s Seattle Sounders—was home to a collection of brand tents, trailers and tchotchkes known as Play Ball Park … brought to you by Capital One. At Lumen Field itself, Nike set up a stage for Major League Baseball’s Draft while other brands set up batting cages and small baseball diamonds.

The stadium’s event center mixed Major League Baseball attractions, like the world’s largest ball and traveling history exhibits, with brand display booths. Finally, to the south of it all, T-Mobile Park awaited the HBCU Swingman Classic (presented by T-Mobile), the Futures Game (SiriusXM), the Celebrity Softball Game (Corona), the Home Run Derby (T-Mobile) and the All-Star Game (Mastercard).

But I headed north, past the MLB-sponsored murals in RailSpur Alley, past the wiffle-ball games and drink tents in Occidental Square, beyond the Booking.com and T-Mobile All-Star billboards dotting 1st Avenue and Pike Street. Three hours on one of Amtrak’s longest-tenured Cascades cars left me in need of a quick wardrobe change and a much-needed reset before diving into the heavily branded abyss.

All-Star Week is one of MLB’s few certainties: The date is fixed, the location is planned in advance and regular-season play can’t alter much about it, aside from who’s playing and coaching. Seattle officials expected more than 100,000 people to visit the city for All-Star Week alone, and MLB has expanded the event to give those crowds a piece of the action. That’s created more space for brands as well, and they had no issue filling it.

Brands in the bullpen

At All-Star Week’s opening event—T-Mobile’s HBCU Swingman Classic—the brands took a backseat, if only for a night. Student athletes from schools piled out of the stadium’s Diamond Club on its field level and took photos with an illuminated mural of Hall of Famer and Seattle legend Ken Griffey Jr. blowing bubble gum.

Just out the tunnel on the gravel beyond the first base dugout, Griffey himself held court with broadcaster and former teammate Harold Reynolds, World Series champion and Cy Young Award winner C.C. Sabathia, fellow Hall of Famer Andre Dawson, two-time All-Star Vince Coleman and others as the crowd competed for his attention. Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Tony Clark was in the mix, as were MLB and HBCU legends including Marquis Grissom, Rickie Weeks Jr., Marvin Freeman and Trenidad Hubbard—along with managers Jerry Manuel, Cito Gaston, Roger Cador and Bo Porter.

As ESPN’s Clinton Yates pointed out that night and in his postmortem for Andscape, Swingman was preceded by some debate about how it should be marketed. With Griffey teaming with MLB and HBCUs to make it happen, brands made a contribution without inserting themselves into the spotlight. 

T-Mobile presented the game, but didn’t douse it in magenta. Before the game, T-Mobile’s Black Empowerment Network employee group hosted a discussion among baseball leaders about improving diversity within the sport. During the event itself, the company presented Alcorn State’s Kewan Braziel its impact award for his work on the field and in the community. In 2024, T-Mobile plans to circle back to Swingman players by hosting an HBCU Athlete Summit of talks and networking opportunities with T-Mobile HBCU alumni and executives.

“We were asked early on if we’d be interested in participating, and it was like an easy yes for us—we were really there ready to help however we could,” said Mike Katz, president of marketing, innovation and experience at T-Mobile. “They had a very specific vision for how they wanted this to be executed.”

Chevrolet also showed up for Swingman, but only as part of its Discover The Unexpected partnership with the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). With Chevy’s help, student journalists from HBCUs covered the game as interns for publications including the The Tennessee Tribune, The Washington Informer, Philadelphia Tribune, The Atlanta Voice, Houston Forward Time and The Dallas Examiner. 

Instead of filling T-Mobile Park’s concourse with tables, tents and activations, brands largely ceded the space to HBCU and Divine Nine fraternity and sorority sign-up tables and Black-owned vendors including Chaztown Beef Jerky, Shikorina Pastries and Marjorie’s Steel Drum Plantain Chips.

The nearly 10,000 in attendance didn’t seem to mind not having brands step over DJ Blast’s mix or their time on the big screen, and the companies involved took a lesson in how to step up while also stepping back. 

It would be the last ounce of restraint MLB partners would need to display.

Taking the field

MLB sponsors get their own first pitch during All-Star Week.

Saturday morning—on a small, wood-fabricated, turf-topped baseball diamond in the middle of CapitalOne’s Play Ball Park and its field of logo-laden marketing experiences—Seattle Mariners Hall of Famer Edgar Martinez, former Mariners Cy Young Award winner Felix Hernandez, Mariners Chairman John Stanton, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell and numerous MLB mascots gathered to kick off the week’s events. The National Anthem was sung, the first pitch was thrown, “play ball” was yelled, pictures were snapped and the marketers and their booth attendants were released upon an unsuspecting fandom—with CapitalOne members getting early access.

MLB’s partners don’t just want to be present at All-Star Week: They want their presence drilled into your psyche (and your photo stream) long after the last pitch is thrown. Whether it’s the Washington State Lottery selling tickets out of a cart or Pete & Gerry’s handing out baseball-patterned foam stress eggs for you to squeeze as you stroll the grounds, All-Star brands want fans to leave with more of an impression than they had before they arrived.

T-Mobile set up charging stations and a mobile store, but also made custom phone cases from fans’ own designs. Ticket reseller SeatGeek turned a shipping container into a wood-paneled basement with a tube television, a Nintendo 64, various pieces of ‘80s and ‘90s baseball memorabilia and QR codes for a chance to win World Series tickets—though even losers left with free ceramic coasters. Topps let fans take pictures in a baseball-card frame while giving away free packs of cards.

Mastercard set up a Food Truck Row to show off its Tap to Pay on iPhone collaboration with Apple. Fans tapped their payment of choice to the smartphones of Seattle businesses including Off the Rez, Where Ya At Matt, MexiCuban, and vegan doughnut cart Dough Joy, where owners Sean Willis and Christopher Ballard offered their Vanilla Biscoff as the doughnut to have if you’re having only one. 

ReCreate, the new athletic-focused and league-approved brand from MLB’s CBD partner Charlotte’s Web, built its own dugout backdrop for fans to post on social media. Not to be outdone, longtime beer sponsor Budweiser brought in a pair of its Clydesdales for photos while allowing fans to play Hit the Buds at its game booth. Slightly more subdued, Corona—in its second year as MLB’s official cerveza—let fans either relax in its Adirondack chairs or shoot a walkup video in their ring-lit booth with a rotating camera platform.

“You talk through it, and you figure out which pieces they want, you split it up and then you have to be really good partners and you have to make sure that there is separation among brands,” said Noah Garden, chief revenue officer for MLB. “We have Budweiser and Corona: They’re two extremely happy partners, but it takes work on both sides.”

It was too much for one space to contain. Chevrolet showcased new cars with a 3D bow-tie logo outside—giving away a Trax RS SUV to Amanda Tinsley, the surviving spouse of Sgt. Tyler Tinsley, and her two children through the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) the morning before the MLB Draft began. 

“Chevrolet and Major League Baseball have been partners for 19 years now, and we used to [give cars to] the players [after the All-Star Game],” said Chevrolet regional director Paul Beckett. “But Chevrolet has a long history of partnering with military appreciation [organizations], so we partnered with TAPS and, in the case of Amanda and her family, this gave us an opportunity to give back to the community and basically change their life.”

But in Lumen Field’s event center, Chevy had fans race on stationary bikes, make their own baseball cards and take photos in team home-run chains while checking out new pickups and EVs. 

Just down the hall, OxyClean pitchman Anthony “Sully” Sullivan greeted families as he deposited children into oversized, made-for-social mockups of bubbling tubs of cleaning product. In the space’s arcade, just next to MLB’s virtual-reality home run derby, the league’s Sony-produced MLB the Show was played on league sponsor Microsoft’s XBox Series S.

If you have a number of categories that aren’t being activated on, you’re missing opportunities to connect with your fan base.

—Noah Garden, chief revenue officer, MLB

“Historically brands bought out vast categories … and they would partner with us, but only promote certain parts of their business,” Garden said. “Now, partnerships work two ways: They bring value to us, we bring value to them.”

In the event center’s main hall, the MLB’s own activities, panel discussions and historic exhibits—and attractions like the world’s largest baseball signed by decades worth of All-Stars—mingled with brand logos. A Miami Marlins mascot sported an ADT mark on its City Connect jersey, Rawlings offered fans a wall of gloves and NFT fantasy sports firm Sorare hosted a seemingly endless rotation of player, coach and baseball-legend meet-and-greets. 

Outside, on the Lumen Field playing surface, Nike erected an amphitheater with a forested backdrop for the week’s MLB draft. OxyClean set up batting cages, auto insurance sponsor GEICO built a mini baseball diamond for youth games and Home Run Derby sponsor T-Mobile allowed fans to launch soft-pitched balls into the Lumen Field seats in a home-run contest of their own.

At many attractions and activations, CapitalOne cardholders got a chance to skip the line and experience some of the privileges of membership. Mastercard, meanwhile, teamed with MLB and tech firm Candy Digital to give cardholders who bought an MLB All Star Game Experience on Priceless.com an NFT that unlocked perks including a meetup with Sabathia, free food at Food Truck Row and $50 to the MLB Shop. 

“The way that we enable those experiences has evolved with technology, but at our core we are still about connecting everyone to priceless possibilities,” said Anne Valentzas, Mastercard’s svp of consumer marketing and head of sponsorships for North America.

The brand experience

Reporters who stayed at the MLB-blocked hotels in Seattle were often shuttled to and from the site in coach buses coated in T-Mobile magenta branding and featuring MLB players’ images. The hotels themselves were dotted with MLB All-Star Week branding featuring the Mastercard logo.

If you covered events on social media, the team at the Visit Seattle tourism group contacted you and had a bag of civic-minded swag—including local popcorn, All-Star themed dry rub, water and sunscreen—sent to your hotel room.

One of Adweek’s first brand contacts, Sodexo Live, invited us up to their suite for the Futures Game and Celebrity Softball Game. Sodexo chefs brought in small plates of watermelon salad, shrimp cocktail, miniature entrees and desserts. Cracker Jack chocolate bars were made for the occasion, and the chef team came in to speak about how the food they served at sporting events had upgraded significantly in recent years as suite-buying customers sought more creative fare and facilities tried to cut back on rotating chafing dishes and accompanying waste.

It’s important that each and every client … is going away happy and feeling like the event was special and specifically catered to them and their needs.

—Meagan Murray, general manager, Sodexo Live! for T-Mobile Park

Sodexo took us around T-Mobile park, first to a lounge that, until this year, had been a press box behind home plate that accommodated more than 200 reporters. They were since moved to a space a floor above and, for the All-Star Game, to an “Auxilliary Press” space in the Hit it Here club in right field. Now with rows of padded seats hanging over the tiers below, a full dining room with enough tables to accommodate those seats and serving stations.

Yet several floors below, in the recently renovated Diamond Club at field level, it was as if someone had relocated a Vegas sportsbook beneath the stands. A wall of various screens towered over the bar, tables and emerald-green banquettes blended into the wood-grain interior. Serving stations and coffee stands were tucked into cozy hallways just steps from field-level seats outside. In each club, concessions and merchandise had their own corners so visitors would never have to touch a concourse during their time at the park.

“It’s important that each and every client—whether it’s a water drop, a plated meal or a fancy hors d’oeuvres being passed—is going away happy and feeling like the event was special and specifically catered to them and their needs,” said Meagan Murray, Sodexo Live! general manager for T-Mobile Park. “Ultimately, it’s having conversations and working with those clients and hosts because everything is a little bit different.”

I feel like New York is my community…I want to be active in my community and Mastercard’s helping with that.

—C.C. Sabathia, former MLB pitcher and Mastercard spokesman

Sure, there were a few minutes where we’d catch Jojo Siwa taking an at-bat or Skylar Astin hitting a home run with the type of power he never displayed in Pitch Perfect. But leading up to Monday’s Home Run Derby, our back was to batting practice as we spoke with Sabathia about why he’d chosen to work with Mastercard during his retirement and what made him use his big-brand connections to help small businesses like Harlem Cycle.

“I feel like New York is my community, and to deal with some of the small businesses in the Bronx is a dream come true,” Sabathia said. “I want to be active in my community and Mastercard’s helping with that.”

During the derby itself, we were in MLB’s suite speaking with CMO Karin Timpone about the impact of the week’s events on the league’s marketing—pausing briefly to watch the Mariners’ Julio Rodriguez hit a record-setting 41 home runs in a round.

Afterward, Timpone noted that Rodriguez’s at-bat, his role as an ambassador in various brands’ All-Star promotions throughout Seattle and his interactions with other celebrities—including Daddy Yankee—made him the embodiment of the league’s marketing plans.

“When we think about our marketing strategy, it’s really all about fan growth: Getting as many fans to get close to the game as we possibly can,” Timpone said.  “We spent a lot of time with our agency Wieden+Kennedy helping us build a brand platform to talk about it.”

Through the start of All-Star Week on June 7, MLB’s average attendance was up more than 8% from 2022, with 2.8 million more fans going to games than a year earlier. Of baseball’s 30 teams, 23 have seen attendance increase this year. Viewership on regional sports networks increased 3%, with MLB TV viewing up 9% overall. More importantly, viewership among those under age 35 has increased 14%, with 86% of those 18-34 saying they’re more likely to watch games with a pitch clock, larger bases and other rule changes enacted this year. 

Some of that slightly younger audience was in attendance when Adweek met up with T-Mobile representatives at the company’s Derby After Dark event at Showbox SoDo. The magenta-neon-lit event featured Anderson Paak spinning vinyl as his alter ego DJ Pee Wee and Nelly playing two decades’ worth of hits to a crowd that included broadcaster Harold Reynolds and Derby participants Rodriguez and Mookie Betts. 

The next morning, we made the short walk from the hotel to Pike Place Market, where the titular Pike Place was closed to the public and coated in magenta carpet for a parade of mascots and stars. From our vantage point between camera crews from SNY and AT&T SportsNet Pittsburgh, we saw youth baseball players from the Seattle area berate Houston Astros mascot Orbit as it handed out tissues and players in designer suits do their best to navigate their partners, children and extended families through autograph seekers and live microphones.

“What I think is great about the whole All-Star Weekend is the opportunity for this really to be a community event,” T-Mobile’s Katz said. “There are tens of thousands of people who go into the stadium, but what makes it even better is the opportunity to reach a lot more people that live in the Puget Sound community.”

By the end of it, I had just enough time to speak with a MattressFirm marketer and accompanying local sleep expert about how their All-Star appearance helps convince customers an adjustable bed will fit into a standard frame—while allowing the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Pirate Parrot mascot to get some rest. I made one last stop at Pete & Gerry’s, where CMO Phyllis Rothschild sported a cast on her arm with the company’s logo and CEO Tom Flocco advised visiting their second location on the T-Mobile Park concourse—before briefly hitting the press box for the All-Star Game.

As I explained to a reporter from Atlanta beside me—who asked where I kept going during games—the brands outside the ballpark and in the suites below us were playing their own game during All-Star Week. Fans who never attended a single event could still go home with bags worth of swag and take photos at countless social-ready brand and MLB statues and frames.

When the All-Star teams took the field, we made one last trip to the suite level to speak with MLB CRO Garden about the brand impact on this event and others in MLB. In the hallway, with league Commissioner Rob Manfred beckoning him back in to watch the game, Garden noted that he’d been with MLB since the league last held its All-Star Game in Seattle in 2001. He saw MLB.com and other forays into technology that predated Netflix and the iPhone and has looked for brand partners willing to move similarly ahead of the curve. He found them at the All-Star Game.

“You can’t walk around [Seattle] without seeing T-Mobile,” Garden said, noting that T-Mobile went further by giving away league subscription products with sales of its products. “Capital One, one of our newest partners, these guys are amazing: They want to execute on programs and do different things and be first, so we’re looking for more partners like that.”