Dingers. Taters. Dongs. Homers. Whatever you want to call them, there is no denying that the most exciting play in baseball is a Home Run. The ultimate crowd spectacle, hitting one is the dream of any fan so we knew that showcasing them would help to win over a new audience. But Home Runs need ballparks, and there are precious few of them (well, none) in the heart of Shoreditch. So we knew we had to get creative to stage the world’s first Home Run Derby in an urban environment.

As well as creating an incredible immersive experience for participants, we built the activation with online reach and broadcast in mind as well, maximising its value and our opportunity to engage with the target audience. The Home Run Derby was a batting cage with a difference as the classic pitcher vs batter duel was reimagined as man vs machine.

The audience we were looking to engage with were ‘New Gen Fans’, a broad but incredibly valuable target group for MLB in Europe. They are 18-34, 51% female and have a high interest in sports, but are not currently followers of baseball. They represent the future fans of Major League Baseball but would not be attending the games at the stadium, so they needed to experience baseball in different ways.

As well as being a unique experience for a new generation of baseball fans, the Home Run Derby was a platform for content creation for MLB. Before London Yards was open to the public, we hosted a VIP event where influencers experienced the cage. MLB Network filmed a long form piece of content documenting the influencer event that was pushed out via Twitter Live. This ensured that we were reaching our target audience online as well as in person.

The cage was a diamond form measuring 14m long, 8.5m wide and 4m high. A ribbed structure lined with responsive LED lighting and a faceted surface with black gloss cladding to reflect the lighting states. An automated pitching machine was 13m from home plate and stood in front of a 16m x 4m LED wall. Terraced seating surrounded the cage to create intimate viewing angles for 150 people.

Participants faced off against a pitching machine and tried to hit as many Home Runs as possible. MLB ball tracking technology measured the exit velocity and angle of the ball and could accurately predict the outcome for each hit in a Major League ballpark.

During their game, the LED screen would react with animations depending on their outcome of their hit. We were inspired by video games, with a playful, glitchy aesthetic and a bespoke soundscape.

- 694 plays over 3 days

- MLB Network live broadcast of the Home Run Derby viewed 1.3m times on Twitter

- Influencer event generated unique reach of 800k and 450k engagements