Rob Manfred finally got his big World Series. Here’s how he plans to capitalize

This World Series gives baseball a chance to reclaim its own name so it can be a national pastime again national. And maybe even more.

Rob Manfred, commissioner of Major League Baseball, has been given a marketer’s dream. Two of the sport’s most iconic brands, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Yankees, will face off in the best-of-seven championship round. These metropolitan areas happen to attract more television viewers than any other area in the country, and their teams are extremely good.

Now in his tenth season leading the sport, Manfred believes baseball is positioned to capitalize on this moment and further propel the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge into the sports fan’s consciousness.

“This is trying to market nationwide and internationally, and it’s different from what’s been done in the past,” Manfred said in an interview with The Athletics.

A surreal collection of talent will be on display at Dodger Stadium when the series begins Friday. Ohtani, from Japan, thrilled at least two countries this season by becoming the first player to reach 50 home runs and steal 50 bases. Judge hit 60 home runs two years ago and fell just two short this year. But Los Angeles’ Mookie Betts may be the game’s most complete player not named Ohtani, and young Yankees slugger Juan Soto could get a $500 million or even $600 million contract as a free agent this winter.

“There’s a lot to capitalize on here,” says Jim Andrews, sports sponsorship expert and founder of A-Mark Strategies. “It comes down to the very specific implementation. How do you literally produce the right content on the right channels? The core fans are probably very excited for a lot of reasons. But how do you use this opportunity to bring in new fans? I think that’s the key.”

Manfred and baseball teams have long been told that they are failing to promote their stars. On Wednesday, he said some of that criticism was justified, and some was not.

“When you hear something enough, I think it takes a certain amount of arrogance to ignore it, and it was certainly something that was said,” Manfred said. “That’s why I paid attention to it. It’s a matter of focus. The local clubs did a lot of marketing, and we relied on that local marketing. I think what I’m talking about here is a very different focus.”

Manfred outlined four key parts of the league’s plan to confuse hearts and minds, with some crossovers.

The first leans on the obvious: the players. One campaign features Judge and Ohtani with the tagline: “Once in a Generation.” Twice.” There’s competition content individually designed around them – “All Rise” for Judge, “Sho Time” for Ohtani – and more, distributed everywhere from social media and TV to billboards and outdoor signage .

The second attempt is also not surprising: an acknowledgment of history.

“Joe DiMaggio and Jackie Robinson played against each other in a Yankee-Dodger World Series. So did Mickey Mantle and Sandy Koufax,” Manfred said. “This one is a sequel.”

Both Manfred and Clayton Kershaw will benefit if the Dodgers return to the World Series. (Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

The third goes abroad. The most-watched MLB postseason game in Japan of all time came earlier this postseason, in the Dodgers’ decisive Game 5 win over the San Diego Padres in the National League Division Series. It is estimated that on average more viewers watched the match on TV in Japan, 12.9 million, than in the US. One of the two starting pitchers from that game, Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Dodgers, will pitch Game 2 of the World Series.

“I think our ratings in Japan will be great,” Manfred said. “That is an important market where you can really make money.”

Earlier in the postseason, MLB placed 113 billboards in Tokyo, a nod to Ohtani’s combined number of home runs and stolen bases.

And the fourth part of the league’s plan is domestic, built around the hope that the World Series is viewed as more than just a bicoastal metropolitan celebration.

“We are promoting in many markets outside of LA and not in New York. We have something to do in Las Vegas at the Sphere,” Manfred said. “Why do we do that? That’s part of: We want the World Series to be an event that people from all over America, not just the two cities, watch.”

A common thread throughout the effort is an effort to focus on younger fans through social media and music, meeting fans where they are. MLB teamed up with El Alfa, a Dominican music artist, to create a song about Soto entering the playoffs. Andrews said social media is an area where MLB has historically lagged behind the NBA and NFL.

Last year’s World Series, between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers, did not offer the same opportunities. But once there’s a matchup, there’s a limit to how much new MLB can come up with to power a series, Andrews said. Success is largely a test of the plans that are already in place.

In that sense, Jon Einalhori, vice president of marketing for player agency Apex, believes the Series can go as far as to breathe new life into the game.

“No, it is not an exaggeration, because there is a real opportunity here,” says Einalhori, who represents a number of participants in the series. “You look at all the data about how many fans have come, the TV ratings, the ratings, the social media impressions, there are trends going up. Everything has been building up for years.”

The league said the average age of ticket buyers had dropped from 51 to 46. FOX, which broadcasts the World Series, has seen a 39 percent increase in its 18-34 demographic this postseason compared to last year, their best since 2017.

SponsorUnited, a platform that tracks sponsorships across sports, published a report Thursday saying the number of Japanese brands in MLB stadiums has increased 218 percent in two seasons, a development at least partially tied to Ohtani’s stardom.

The Dodgers and Yankees have combined to bring in an estimated $300 million in sponsorship revenue this year, making for a big money match in ways other than payroll. SponsorUnited founder Bob Lynch described their meeting as the “equivalent of the Dallas Cowboys taking on the Golden State Warriors: two entities that together generate more sponsorship revenue than any other two that have ever played against each other in the US”

“The way I look at this World Series is we’ve had two really good years in a row,” Manfred said. “Attendance is up, our ratings are good, our demographics – both ticket purchasing and television audiences – are really improving. … And I think this World Series provides an opportunity to appeal to a national audience because of the matchup and the players involved.”

The start of the 2023 season is a dividing line. Manfred took on the traditionalists and introduced a pitch clock, which forced faster play action and made games smoother.

Lynch also said he has noticed the league boosting its own internal operations, which advise clubs. MLB teams saw a collective 20 percent increase in sponsorship revenue this season.

“They had an incredibly successful season off the field,” Lynch said. “This is a happy ending to a great business year.”

Not everything will be under MLB’s control over the next eight days, the maximum time the series can last. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Einalhori said he understands that MLB has been inundated with requests from celebrities to attend the games.

“You’re going to have hundreds of millions, if not — I’m not kidding — billions of social media impressions from outside of baseball,” Einalhori said. “That, I think, is the most immeasurable thing in terms of capitalizing, but it will probably deliver the most value.”

FOX will also have a major influence on the game’s reception. From the presidential election, college football, the NFL and now the NBA seasons, it’s a busy news cycle for baseball to break, Andrews said.

“Obviously your broadcast partner needs to help you,” he said.

MLB and FOX did consider one special accommodation that ultimately turned out to be unnecessary.

For the first time this year, the World Series had two possible start dates: October 25 or October 22. The earlier date would have helped avoid a lengthy layoff if both series from the previous round, the National League and American League Championship Series, were completed in five games or less.

But as both the Dodgers and Yankees both entered their fifth games with a chance to close out that round, MLB and FOX considered keeping the World Series on the later schedule so it could survive.

“That was largely driven by the desire of our broadcast partners to have a little more time to sell,” Manfred said of the discussion.

Because the Dodgers ultimately needed six games to advance, the conversation was left out. But a meeting between LA and New York is a boon for FOX, which taps into fan bases from the country’s two most populous cities.

Of course, some fans in smaller markets will in turn complain that those teams, and their large payrolls, are the last two standing. But Manfred defended the state of competition and equality in sports.

“Our track record of competitive balance is damn good,” Manfred said. “I just don’t think you can shout about the Yankees and the Dodgers, given the games we’ve had the last few years.”

In this landmark World Series, Manfred said that “long-term efforts are starting to pay off big time.” The question soon arises as to how long it can remain ripe. MLB may try to launch a national streaming package with a major digital company in the coming years. How much money it can make from these media rights will depend on how well it attracts attention across the country.

“The NFL has just done a fantastic job of really creating content and things to talk about all year round, whereas baseball tends to fade away in the middle of winter until spring training starts,” Andrews said. “Lean on your social media and say, we have stories about, ‘Hey, if you missed it, here’s a reminder of all the exciting things that happened last fall, and make sure you don’t miss this in 2025. ”

(Illustration by Meech Robinson/The Athletic; Photos: Heather Barry, Todd Kirkland, Rob Tringali, Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)