Outside Pitch: Why IRL Advertising at the World Baseball Classic is a Big Opportunity for Brands

February 20, 2026

Baseball might be the American pastime, but it is a global sport.

It’s an essential part of countless cultures, from Cuba to Japan, and next month marks more than just the start of spring training as the sport will crown its true world champions in the World Baseball Classic.

While baseball this time of year is otherwise limited to low-stakes spring training, the Classic plays to big crowds, combining the power of national pride with teams stacked with the world’s biggest stars.

This time around that includes a USA squad stacked high with Major League Baseball’s top pitchers, who often in the past have been held back from the WBC because of injury fears and insurance underwriting.

Team USA will play its opening round-games in Houston’s Daikan Park against Brazil, Great Britain, Italy, and Mexico. Miami’s loanDepot park will showcase games between the Dominican Republic, Israel, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

Along with San Juan and Tokyo, Houston and Miami will host the opening rounds from March 5 to 11. The top two teams from each pool will advance to single-elimination brackets in Houston and Miami on March 13 and 14, with the semifinals and finals immediately following in Miami.


Make no mistake about it, these are more than just friendly exhibition games – the WBC is a prestigious worldwide battle for bragging rights that puts butts in seats. The last edition of the tournament drew over 1 million fans for the pool play and over 1.3 million total – the highest number in the tournament’s history, with one of the sport’s most exciting players, Shohei Ohtani, taking home the MVP trophy. The 2023 edition set television viewership records as well (SOURCE: WBC).

In fact, the largest crowd ever at loanDepot park was in 2017 when a standing-room-only crowd of 37,446 came to watch the USA play the Dominican Republic (SOURCE: WBC).

Events like the Classic can be a gold mine of goodwill and engagement for brands. Consumers notice when brands sponsor the things they’re passionate about – and 45% are more likely to buy from sponsor brands (SOURCE: Ipsos).


Events on the scale of the World Baseball Classic are larger than the venues in which the games are played. They engage entire communities. They captivate whole cities! If you’re only advertising around the stadium itself, you’re already behind. There’s no better way to put the right message in the right place at the right time to reach the right person than with OUTFRONT’s Digital Direct Ad Server.

Impression-based digital out of home campaigns built on DDA deliver desired audiences wherever they are. Advertisers can tap into our powerful targeting capabilities to reach and influence them with dynamic, timely, hyper relevant messaging.

For example, when the Dominican Republic and Venezuela play in Miami, dynamic digital ads could include the real-time score of the game to engage baseball fans. But to take it a step further, what if the ad creative in heavily Venezuelan neighborhoods like Doral was in the colors of the Venezuelan flag?

Now more than ever, sports are an essential vector for community. IRL advertising – especially the targeted dynamic digital kind – can make your brand one of the things communities build around.

Let’s talk about how to find your audience at the World Baseball Classic. Contact OUTFRONT today.

Author: Jay Fenster, Marketing Manager @ OUTFRONT

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