Boardroom goes inside MLB All-Star events to see how the league infuses tech and digital activations into the annual event to boost the fan experience.
Each summer, the MLB All-Star Week symbolically marks the midway point of the Major League Baseball season with the Home Run Derby, All-Star Game, and surrounding fan experiences, including a slew of activations at the Capital One All-Star Village. Earlier this week, I embarked on a press trip with Mastercard to Arlington, Texas, for this year’s events.
Before heading to Texas for my first MLB All-Star, I really didn’t know what to expect. I attended the event with one goal: to scope out how the league integrates tech and digital activations to boost the fan experience.
From robot bartenders to AI-generated custom balls, let’s take a look at some of my favorite ways MLB used tech throughout the All-Star event.
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Breaking Down the Tech at MLB All-Star
The Capital One All-Star Village took over Choctaw Stadium, Esports Stadium, and the North Lawn to create the ultimate baseball theme park for fans. This is where brands set up their activations, from a giant Ferris wheel to batting cages, Food Truck Row, a pin exchange wall, and much more. I got a chance to explore the experience in between the main events. I also watched the Home Run Derby and All-Star Game from Mastercard’s suite at Globe Life Field. It was an exclusive experience that I used to observe how the league is leaning into tech.
Here are the five top tech activations I encountered during MLB All-Star events.
Adobe’s AI-Generated Custom Ball
I worked through a few prompts to develop an AI-generated design to display on a supersized baseball. The system prompted me with a sentence I had to fill in with two themes before creating a handful of backdrops. My full prompt was “Amidst the stars, astronauts drift exploring cosmos.” Take a look at what I created. This activation was a simple, fun, and smart way to introduce generative AI to the masses in an entry-level way.
ADAM: The Robot Bartender
The Texas Rangers teased a new robot bartender, ADAM, who was shaking up classic cocktails in 90 seconds or less. It made me a tasty lemon drop in a souvenir cup, and fans can expect to see ADAM at Globe Life Field in section 111 throughout the remainder of the season.
The bot uses AI tech and advanced sensors to make classic cocktails, including lemon drops, old-fashioned drinks, and mocktails. After ordering the drink with a human, the order is sent to ADAM to start mixing. From my observation, it seems like the mixer for the cocktail comes out with the ice, then ADAM pours the liquor and gives it a couple of swirls before dispensing it into a cup. I didn’t think the robot took too long to make my drink, but seeing how fast ADAM can work under pressure during a busy game will be interesting.
Swing Analysis
This fun activation used AI to analyze various data points on my swing to match me with the MLB player I most like. I got José Ramírez, the Cleveland Guardians lefty I was rooting for in the Home Run Derby. Since I swung left-handed, I noticed that the system took a little longer to calibrate than right-handed swingers.
Ballpark Bites Presented by Mastercard
MLB showed off its new online food delivery menu, Ballpark Bites, which allows fans to enjoy ballpark eats from their homes. Ballpark Bites is available on food delivery apps, including DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Postmates, but Mastercard helped bring the new offering to life in Food Truck Row at MLB All-Star. The MLB brand’s online extension features a set menu, including a bacon chicken sandwich, hot dog, Philly cheesesteak, and more.
Statcast
MLB’s tracking tech platform Statcast showed up in various cool ways throughout the events, but my favorite was seeing the distances and homerun recap graphic for each batter during the Home Run Derby. After each batter completed their round, there was a graphic of the field displayed on the jumbotron that showcased every home run they hit. Also, the ability of the tracking tech to clock the distances of each homerun was impressive, especially since these distances determined if participants got that bonus round.
How Mastercard is Digitizing the MLB Fan Experience
Mastercard served as the presenting sponsor of the 2024 MLB All-Star Game, and the brand was seamlessly present throughout the event in various ways. Mastercard and MLB have had a partnership that spans almost three decades, and it all started with the same “Priceless” advertising campaign the payments tech company still uses today.
“We have been partners with MLB since 1997, which is the year we launched our Priceless campaign at the World Series, so it’s a long-standing relationship [and] an important relationship for us because it’s connecting consumers to their passion for baseball,” Anne Valentzas, SVP of Consumer Marketing and Sponsorships at Mastercard, told Boardroom. “We’re always looking for new ways to innovate [and] use technology to engage the passionate cardholder to give them more opportunities to get closer to the game.”
Valentzas has worked at Mastercard for 12 years in various roles, most recently in marketing, overseeing all of the brand’s integrated campaigns. Her biggest task is ensuring Mastercard’s sponsorship properties overlap with its consumer marketing.
“The way that we’re evolving our strategy is that we’re moving away from interrupting what people care about and being more integrated with what people care about,” she said. “Priceless was born out of an insight that experiences matter more than things. When we initially launched this campaign, it was really about observing those priceless moments. We’ve evolved to this place where people want to participate in those priceless moments and experiences.”
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This campaign bleeds into Mastercard’s work with MLB legend CC Sabathia, who told Boardroom he’s most excited to see the youth experience MLB All-Star happenings. Sabathia said he enjoys his work with Mastercard because it feels authentic, and the brand lets him come in and do whatever he needs to do, which is essential to his creative freedom.
“The work I do with MLB is to help grow the game of baseball,” Sabathia said. “The more fan experiences we create, I feel like we can create more baseball players.”
Sabathia talked about how tech changes the game, from the stats and data shared during broadcasts to the tech used to track batting distances to automated balls and strikes. To him, one of the most intriguing innovations is the pitch timer introduced last year, which clocks the time between batters to speed up the pace of the game. Sabathia said the pitch clock alone has made baseball a more digestible event. He said that the subtle ways MLB brings tech into the game make all the difference.
“I think baseball is a different game than it was three years ago, [and] I think two years from now it will be a different game, too,” Sabathia said. “In baseball, we need to keep doing stuff for the culture to attract fans. I feel we are heading in the right direction and gaining traction.”
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