MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL: HYDE PARK HOME-RUN

Baseball is America’s game. 150 years of history, iconic cities and teams that play 162 games per season. MLB wants to expand across the Atlantic – but how do you bring the best of the game to a new audience? By taking over the stage of one of Britain’s biggest music festivals with a quick-fire version of the sport.

On July 4th, the British Summer Time Festival stage in London’s Hyde Park was transformed for the city’s first Home-Run Derby – in which baseball legends representing the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers competed to hit as many home runs as possible against the clock. 48 hours earlier, Justin Bieber had headlined that same stage. Now it was the turn of baseball heroes Cliff Floyd, Carlos Pena and Shawn Green, as well as big-hitting England cricketers Jos Buttler and Alex Hales.

W co-ordinated all marketing, media relations and communications, tasked with driving an audience to this unique, one-off event. 15,000 fans came to watch and holler as homers flew into the crowd, while media coverage on both sides of the Atlantic ranged from Sky Sports to Time magazine and ESPN to the New York Times.

MLB now has a foothold in the UK and there’s much, much more to come. Watch this space.