In 2019, Major League Baseball made history by playing their first ever regular season games in Europe. The Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees faced off at London Stadium in Stratford. Demand for tickets was huge, and the games sold out instantly.

However, MLB knew that the true value of London Series was reaching out beyond those avid baseball fans in the stadium. Increasing the popularity of the sport amongst younger fans, along with growing the game globally, are important objectives for the league.

Launching in a new market meant MLB could communicate in new ways and speak to a new generation of baseball fans. Our brief was to create a London Series fan festival that engaged a new, millennial audience.

Teams such as the Red Sox and Yankees have such strong historic and cultural ties to their cities that they represent them on a global stage. So the London Series gave us the opportunity to present not just the best of baseball, but also the best of Boston and New York culture to a millennial audience in London.

London Yards was a 3 day festival of all things baseball that ran from the 28-30 June 2019 at the Truman Brewery. It involved digital and physical baseball activations, screenings of the London Series, ballpark inspired food and drink, and live music and DJs.

From a creative perspective, we used the fierce rivalry between the two London Series teams as inspiration, having Boston and New York face off across the space in terms of environment, branding and programming.

The audience we were looking to engage with were ‘New Gen Fans’, an incredibly valuable target group for MLB in Europe. They are 18-34, and have a high interest in sports, but are not currently followers of baseball. They represent the future fans of the league, but in all likelihood would not be attending the games at the stadium.

To engage with this group we had to create an experience that was authentic to baseball and appealed to the cultural passions of our audience. Our insight was that what makes baseball so unique is what happens in addition to the action on the field - ‘beyond the ballpark’.

Our approach to reaching this audience was to consider both the ‘depth’ and ‘reach’ of the festival: ensuring that visitors had a deep and meaningful experience in person, whilst also creating content that could be broadcast out to a much wider audience.

The festival utilised two interconnected venues within the Truman Brewery: U Block and Brick Lane Yard. U Block contained our hero baseball experience: the world's first indoor Home Run Derby, along with 4 VR batting cages.

Brick Lane Yard contained analogue baseball activations, inspired by the historic nature of the sport. It also hosted live screenings of the London Series. With tickets to the stadium in high demand, London Yards the best place to watch the games if you couldn’t make it to the stadium.

Internet radio station NTS and streetwear brand Champion soundtracked London Yards, with DJs playing across the weekend. Two of London’s upcoming stars Nadia Rose and Lady Leshurr took to the stage in performances supported by MLB partners Sony, ‘47 and High Snobiety.

We also collaborated with street food vendors to create brand new menu items that were a unique London take on classic ballpark fare.

- 13,115 visitors attended over the 3 days

- 46% were aged 18-34

- 42% were casual fans of the sport

- 90% would recommend the event to a friend

- 12.3M reach on social media

- 550k engagements

- MLB Network live broadcast from London Yards viewed 1.3m times on Twitter