Father’s Day Facebook/MLB ‘Game Day’ Campaign Sees Dads And Daughters Take In First Baseball Game

As with so many marketing initiatives leveraging such annual ‘day’ events, the ad aims to tug on the heartstrings.

But with the added switch of a focus on daughters and sports rather than the tired old clichéd sons stereotype.

Baseball is seeing growing female interest all around the game: from the field to the broadcast booth (with the likes of Jessica Mendoza), to a new wave of outstanding writers and radio personalities, women are making their mark on the sport.

One of the key pillars to promoting baseball is the sports history for bonding with family and friends over more than just the on-field action, but also the cultural traditions which surround the game and lead to lasting memorable moments.

MLB has recently been focusing more on this at-game experience and how fans consume such life experiences.

The partnership MLB/Facebook partnership extends well beyond Facebook Groups.

In April 2019, at the start of the new season, MLB and Facebook extended their partnership with a new one-season rights deal that sees the social media giant reduce its line-up of games in 2019.

The MLB is able to sell sponsorships against those broadcasts, while Facebook will continue to trial interactive and social elements to its coverage.

The new tie-up for the 2019 season is the third year that live games are carried by Facebook.

But only six live, regular-season games will be available globally on Facebook Watch (excluding local markets subject to blackout rules and select international markets).

In 2018, Facebook streamed live coverage of 25 weekday afternoon games.

Also, starting in the 2018 season and continuing through 2019, the live production of streamed games via MLB Live on Facebook Watch has enabled deeper integration into the official Facebook Groups in several innovative ways: such as the team-based analysts spending a full half-inning with the Group for an exclusive in-game Q&A with Group members.

Overall, the official Facebook Groups for the 30 MLB teams average more than 1,200 posts and 36,000 interactions (comments, reactions, shares) per day.

Of course, it wasn’t just the league and its official partners who activated around Fathers Day.

A fair number of teams and players leveraged the event too.

One of our favourites was a parody Baltimore Orioles social spot launched on Fathers Day which saw teammates poke fun of Trey Mancini by campaigning for him to be voted into the 2019 MLB All-Star Game.

Others range from a Liverpool/Nivea hero dad surprise stunt (see case study) and a Father’s Day themed campaign from Indian sports broadcaster Star Sports promoting its coverage of the India v Pakistan Cricket World Cup game (see case study).