The branded entertainment category, and specifically branded content, is growing each year in the United States. Clients are beginning to allocate significant resources, financial and otherwise, into branded content, which is becoming an integral part of many major brands' marketing mix. The MLB Fan Cave, a content hub for MLB that seamlessly integrates sponsors into the content and OOH experience, is an example of a successful branded entertainment programme that led to a direct ROI for the client. There are no restrictions or regulations.

A New York City retail space was remodeled into a fully livable hang-out space. It worked as a tourist destination as well as a digital destination. When teams from around the country would be in town to visit the NY Yankees or Mets they'd stop by the FanCave on the way to the stadiums. So players from every team in the league were part of the effort over the course of the year, plus many celebrities would come by the Cave and hang with the participants when in town on business or promotional tours.

Over the course of the season, the MLB Fan Cave produced more than 150 online videos featuring more than 85 current and former MLB players and other celebrities who have visited. Several of these videos have accumulated over 50,000 views on the site and YouTube.In addition to watching every MLB game of the season, Mike and Ryan communicated with fans daily through Twitter and Facebook. The campaign yielded 100m+ impressions since launch. Fans have also shown to be extremely engaged—with a large percentage of our fans visiting our Facebook page at least once a week while these same fans have also shared site and social content—helping to yield 20% more visits to the www.mlbfancave.com website. The Fan Cave social community across Facebook and Twitter truly has turned into a forum for MLB fans to talk baseball and the audience of over 100K are also frequent sharers of Fan Cave content. This base of highly engaged followers represents the new, younger audience Major League Baseball is looking to reach:-Younger than avid baseball fans - 28 YO vs 45 YO-Greater disposable income - $80K HHI vs $68K HHI-Predominantly male - 80%M vs 64%M