Challenge

Major League Baseball approached The Wild with a clear goal: inspire a new generation of Gen Z baseball fans through original, social-first content.

The insight: we discovered Baseball suffers from a perception problem in Europe; it’s the American version of cricket, and Gen Z'ers are not into cricket. Gen Z sports fans want a varied content diet; social is for subcultures and stories beyond the field.

How to reach them? YouTube - the go-to for sports discovery; driving structured and diarised engagement.

The Idea

Launch a brand new YouTube series to excite and educate European fans about baseball and help them discover aspects that make the game so compelling.

However, just before we were due to launch, the world came to a halt with live sports and events cancelled due to Covid-19. But we pivoted, fast. We adapted our strategy to produce and film the ‘Bases Covered’ series entirely in lockdown, curating the ultimate pre-season companion, ensuring fans kept baseball top of mind and were excited about the restart.

Across 10 episodes on MLB’s YouTube channel, we challenged sports journalist Max Whittle and influencer Jemel One Five to recruit a roster of celebrity influencers to form their own baseball team, without leaving their homes. 

For the series finale (with lockdown restrictions lifted) the ‘Bases Covered All Stars’ played the UK’s best baseball team, the London Mets, in MLB’s first live London event of 2020.

Results

Our core KPI was to introduce baseball to a new audience in Europe within the target demographic, and 55% of the total Europe views came from viewers aged 18 to 34, who watched nearly 19,000 hours across the 10 episodes.

Plus, the game between the ‘Bases Covered All Stars’ and the London Mets was featured on CBS Sports thanks to BBC Sport commentator Michah Richards achieving an epic home run for the celebrity team.