Since last year, Disney Advertising has seen demand for ad space increase 30% for not only its broadcast of the T-Mobile Home Run Derby on July 14, but for the Nike-sponsored MLB Draft on July 13. While both events have several MLB official sponsors and returning advertisers, the 21 brands making their first appearance at both events in 2025 contributed more than half of the total ad revenue for each broadcast.
“If you watch the Draft, we do some incredible storytelling within that environment, and Home Run Derby is just action-packed, super exciting, and gives brands the opportunity to be culturally relevant in moments that are unpredictable,” said Danielle Brown, Disney Advertising’s svp of sports streaming and brand solutions. “We’ve already exceeded our plan for Home Run Derby, so it’s encouraging to see that these [events] are continuing on an upward trajectory.”
But as more brands step in for All-Star camera time and crowd the plate, both broadcast partners and Major League Baseball itself have to get creative with their game plans to squeeze as many players onto the field as possible. For MLB media partners, it means offering robust packages of properties that make less-than-ideal in-game positioning more palatable, or supplementing event placements with social media or studio presence.
For MLB, it means giving All-Star veterans like T-Mobile more duties, including implementing its Automated Ball-Strike Challenge System (ABS) at the All-Star Game for the first time ever. It means giving GEICO space to launch its GEICO Relievers campaign during the celebrity softball game it sponsors. It also requires the league to occasionally have its brand teammates work together, as T-Mobile and apparel provider Fanatics are handing out FanCash through a QR code and driving fans to the MLB Shop.
“Whenever we enter into any partnership on the MLB side, we always love for our partners to pull a number of different levers to bring their partnerships to life, and the broadcast media piece of it is such an important component,” said MLB CMO Uzma Rawn Dowler. “We love when they lean in and create activations and executions and social content that lives on MLB.com and our social handles, but also extend those activations and those platforms onto broadcast as well.”