MLB Marks 2021 Opening Day With ‘Make It Major’ New Season Youth-Focused Campaign

McHugh also worked on the MLB’s previous ‘We Play Loud‘ brand campaign which launched in 2019 and which started the league’s focus on the fresh swagger of youth and move away from the game’s old school traditions and the restrictive norms which the sport had long imposed on its exuberant youth.

Now the league joins its next generation in celebrating achievements, expressing emotions and championing noise rather than baseball’s traditional patient, ‘curb your enthusiasm’ on-field approach to the game.

As MLB’s 2021 season gets underway, it is Fernando Tatis who is spearheading the sport’s appeal to youthful audiences in marketing from the league itself, as well as by its sponsors and broadcast partners.

Tatis recently joined Derek Jeter and Bryce Harper as the only MLB baseball stars to front a national campaign from long-time MLB partner Gatorade, he is the face of Adidas’ ‘Baseball Is Dead: Ready For Change’ campaign and aged just 21 he is the youngest cover star on ‘MLB: The Show’ new video game release.

Another interesting strand of the league’s new season strategy to connect with young audiences was the MLB Opening Day Six-Hour Livestream on Twitch which featured several special events and guests and saw discussions on topics such as who has the best sense of style, video games, walk-up music, fashion, ballpark food and Opening Day meals and tailgating, plus custom MLB and MLB player emojis, hashtag triggers and polls, as well as 20% off at MLBShop.com. Although, notably, not any actual games.

While, for the league itself, following the lowest-viewed World Series in many years (possibly in history), MLB is now hoping to attract a younger generation of viewers by energizing its presence via its new TikTok and it also recently launched ‘Game Stories’ via Google.

This is a new video-based storytelling platform similar to Instagram stories that can be accessed directly through Google search and which also allows partners to utilize short-form creative. MLB typically aligns a partner with a relevant piece of content that makes the most sense based on its product or service and thus far the league has signed up a number of its existing partners including T-Mobile, Geico, Bank of America, Chevrolet, The Hartford and Mastercard and each receives brand attribution throughout the stories by way of branding and short-form video.

A further key to engaging Gen Z is capturing more content and MLB itself now has deployed a staff member to each of the league’s 30 ballparks whose only purpose is to video and photograph pre-, in- and post-game action from different camera angles and viewpoints as to that captured by its broadcast television partners. The aim here is to capture the raw emotion of what’s happening.

“We’ve seen some great success in terms of the engagement numbers of when that content is pushed out on our social platforms as well as the clubs or the players that utilize it,” explained MLB marketing exec Barbara McHugh, adding that on Twitter and Instagram the MLB tends to see a double-digit increase in engagement as compared to normal highlights.

MLB is also focusing on features more personal content, spotlighting players in their street clothes and in everyday scenarios before and after they are on the field to show their rounded personalities and enable fans to get closer to them as people.

McHugh emphasized player marketing as a means to build a connection among younger demographics. “We know that as much as people like to follow brands and teams or us as a league, it’s really the athletes that are the most interesting,” she says.