To stay ahead in the digital competition, Major League Baseball (MLB) has expanded its partnership with Adobe, enabling the league and its 30 teams to quickly and at scale create precision marketing campaigns. The core of this strategy lies in leveraging automation and data-driven fan engagement that adapts to how fans consume the game in today's era of social media, streaming, and artificial intelligence.

The new features will roll out gradually starting this season. In the future, MLB teams can use the fragmented fan data they possess—such as a fan attending games for multiple consecutive seasons due to a specific promotion—to create targeted campaigns. A fan who has attended Star Wars Day for three consecutive years will receive an email featuring Grogu (the Child), while another fan who has shown loyalty to a visiting team's player might receive a text message highlighting that player to remind them of an upcoming game.

"We've reached a point where data and the ability to create different [audience] segments are no longer the obstacles they were in the past," said Kasia Danilczuk, Director of Product for MLB's Enterprise Fan Data Platform. "Now it's about the generation of content and creative elements, and how to pair those with all the data elements to ensure we deliver the right content to fans."

This new collaboration builds on a 2021 agreement focused primarily on data refinement. The new agreement includes broader use of Adobe's performance marketing tool GenStudio, its creative management tool Firefly Services, and Adobe's LLM Optimizer—a tool designed to improve brand visibility in AI-driven search responses.

Enhanced Fan Engagement

Social media and AI have changed the way fans enjoy professional sports. Fans are no longer limited to cheering for their home team or watching highlights only on SportsCenter; they are creating their own rules of engagement, such as making personal fan highlight reels, searching for promotional offers, and getting information through AI-driven generative search.

"The way people engage with sports today goes beyond just watching the game," said Rachel Thornton, Chief Marketing Officer for Adobe's Enterprise division. "It's more interactive than ever before."

Danilczuk noted that the advanced messaging features MLB is developing are powered by Adobe's Firefly Services and Custom Models. These tools will provide the league's already overburdened marketing teams with approved assets and generative tools to streamline campaign creation and approval processes. The league views these tools as an "assist layer" for its clubs' marketing and product teams, accelerating processes so they can focus on building business and fan engagement initiatives.

"We want to reach a stage where we can fully leverage automation, allowing clubs to focus on more strategic fan communication plans," Danilczuk said. "They can step back and strategically look at which engagement programs and experiences drive the highest revenue."

Thornton said that in the future, MLB will also use Adobe's tools to provide content support for fans. As social media becomes a primary channel for fan interaction—whether between fans or between fans and teams—the league is looking for ways to support this initiative. One example: MLB recently established a partnership with TikTok to drive global discovery and engagement through exclusive content and deeper interactions with MLB players and assets.

In addition to improving creative development and precision targeting, MLB also wants to leverage Adobe to stay current in an AI-driven world. Through Adobe's LLM Optimizer, the league and its teams will gain better insight into how they appear in AI-driven search results, especially as fans use generative tools to find tickets, learn about teams, or get insights into the overall fan experience.

"As a marketer, you now have to think about how content about your brand appears in various ways on [AI platforms], and how you influence it, work with it, ensure you're performing well, and that the content you're providing is relevant," Thornton said. "The last thing you want is bad or outdated information from months ago being presented because you didn't do anything about it."

With all these new tools, MLB is striving to stay relevant to fans in a rapidly changing world.

"We want to ensure we're at the forefront of these cool technologies that have developed rapidly over the past few years, while also ensuring we have the ability to influence how these technologies reach our fans," Danilczuk said.