SBJ Unpacks: The centerpiece of MLB’s global strategy

Tonight in Unpacks: The World Baseball Classic begins next week at the Tokyo Dome, and it’ll not only be a showcase of global talent but also MLB’s efforts to grow its business in Asian markets, reports SBJ’s Mike Mazzeo and Terry Lefton.

Also tonight:

• World Cup funding delays test U.S. major event playbook
• LIV Golf touts ‘age of deescalation’ as it seeks growth
• The NFL owners who don’t make the grade
• Op-ed: What brands can learn from F1’s trust in instinct

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Josh Carpenter closes out the week with the surge in viewership for the Milan Cortina Winter Games, Apple’s plans for its F1 broadcasts, President Trump’s upcoming roundtable on college sports and more.

Major League Baseball is betting big on Asia — and early commercial returns from the 2026 World Baseball Classic suggest the wager is already paying off.

The WBC opens March 4 at the Tokyo Dome, and even before the first pitch, the league is calling it an unprecedented commercial success. Noah Garden, MLB deputy commissioner of business and media, cited triple-digit growth across all commercial areas since the 2023 WBC.

“It’s more of a success than we imagined,” said Garden, who will be at the Tokyo Dome next week to watch games, including the Chinese Taipei-Australia opener Wednesday. “For that growth to continue, we’ll need more compelling storylines and great competition.”

While MLB has not disclosed specific revenue figures, this reinforces the league’s belief that the WBC can serve as a commercial engine and path to deeper international growth.

The Tokyo opener is the latest step in what has become a deliberate Asia-first strategy for MLB. The league opened its 2024 and 2025 regular seasons in Seoul and Tokyo, staged a WBC qualifier in Taiwan early last year and has leaned heavily into Shohei Ohtani’s stardom as a commercial bridge between markets.

Since Japan captured the 2023 WBC championship, with Ohtani striking out Mike Trout for the final out, Ohtani’s stardom has continued to skyrocket, with his Dodgers securing back-to-back World Series titles. Meanwhile, postseason viewership numbers have soared in Japan, with Netflix and MLB reaching a media rights deal last August that will see all 47 WBC games streamed there.

“That tells you how bullish we are on the Asia market,” Jeremiah Yolkut, MLB senior vice president of global events, told Sports Business Journal. “Ohtani and other stars from across Asia are really driving a lot of our international growth strategy.”

Garden said interest in the tourney helped account for an influx of some $250 million throughout its history from various governments to local federations around the world to support baseball.

The revenue is evenly split among MLB, the union and international baseball federations. Prize money is also distributed to the federations (aiding baseball development in those countries) and to players.

“Global growth was the target when we started the WBC and what we’re getting,” Garden said.

Approximately 190 players on MLB rosters will compete in the 20-team WBC. Yolkut said ticket sales at all four host venues (which also include Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico; loanDepot Park in Miami; and Daikin Park in Houston) are trending up from three years ago.

“Fans want to come, and I think it’s a destination,” Yolkut said.

While the United States will earn an automatic bid into the LA28 Olympics at the host country, the top two other nations from the Americas in the WBC will earn Olympic berths. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has been increasingly optimistic that MLB players will be able to participate.

About 70 sponsors from around the world are supporting the WBC, with 10 in as global sponsors, including Japanese health care company IHI; Japanese green tea distributor Ito En; Japan Airlines; Japanese video game developer Konami; Kowa, a sporting scopes manufacturer; Japan’s largest banking group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG); footwear/apparel brand New Balance; watchmaker Seiko; and bedding and recovery wear company Tential.

Sponsor ads on uniforms will include longtime MLB corporate patrons T-Mobile (Puerto Rico) and Capital One (U.S.). Other patches: Caja de Ahorros (Panama), MUFG (Japan), Four’N Twenty (Australia), Kakaopay Securities (Korea), CTBC (Chinese Taipei), Banco BHD (Dominican Republic), Visit Curaçao (Netherlands) and The Tie (Israel). Helmet decal sponsors include Universal Insurance (Puerto Rico), Nippon Express (Japan), Com2uS (Korea), Citiesocial (Chinese Taipei) and Olein (Dominican Republic).

For the first time, each of the four WBC pools has presenting sponsors. Discover Puerto Rico will be presenting sponsor of the San Juan pool; Japanese HR company Dip will be presenting sponsor of the Tokyo pool; and Capital One, MLB’s official bank and credit card, will be presenting sponsor of the U.S. tournament locations in Houston and Miami.

On the consumer products side, Fanatics has taken over venue retail rights, which were held by Legends. Twenty licensees are on board, including longtime MLB rights holders like Antigua, Mizuno, Nike, Rawlings, Topps and WinCraft. New Era is the official cap for 19 teams. Nike is the official uniform supplier for the same group. Mizuno is the official cap and uniform for Team Japan. Fanatics is doing WBC collaborations with urban apparel brands Born X Raised and Undefeated.

Robert F. Kennedy famously said in 1968 that “Democracy is messy, and it’s hard. It’s never easy.” Forty-five years later, then-FIFA Secretary General Jérôme Valcke declared ahead of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil that “less democracy is sometimes better for organizing a World Cup.”

Kennedy was defending democratic friction as a virtue. Valcke — who was later convicted of accepting bribes related to World Cup media rights — was dismissing it as an obstacle. Over the next 100 days, as the U.S. navigates planning and funding for the 2026 World Cup, we will see just how much that friction shapes the process.

The latest hurdle is the delayed distribution of $625 million in federal funding to host cities to cover security costs, which FIFA and the cities collectively lobbied hard to have included in the “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress last summer.

This week, the COO of Miami’s World Cup host committee and the deputy chief of the Kansas City Missouri Police Department appeared before the House Committee on Homeland Security to say they urgently need clarity and access to those funds to execute their plans.

Asked about a potential “drop-dead date,” at which fan events would have to be scaled back or canceled, Miami COO Ray Martinez said, “We’re about 70-something days out from starting to build the [FIFA Fan Festival]. These decisions have to be made. Generously, I say within the next 30 days is the drop-dead date. I know that the local agencies are very anxious, but without receiving this money, it could be catastrophic for our planning and coordination.”

Several city organizers who spoke with Sports Business Journal said they were generally aware they would have to wait to be reimbursed for expenses, with some cities in a better position than others to float the upfront costs. What they weren’t prepared for is to still be waiting for FEMA to approve their grant applications.

Complicating matters further is the shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, which houses FEMA, amid a political fight over appropriations. That standoff between Republicans and Democrats, while unrelated to the World Cup itself, may be slowing down the distribution of critical funding.

While the cities are generally confident the money will materialize, they need certainty before they can move forward with procurement and bringing in additional law enforcement assets from nearby jurisdictions.

Host cities such as Dallas, Houston and Philadelphia have not publicly shown any concern that the delay in funding will force them to change their plans. All three remain committed to holding large, central FIFA Fan Festivals that run for more than 30 days, as FIFA initially intended. Others, though, have already started scaling down plans and have indicated they could be forced to downsize further if the federal funding remains stalled.

FIFA, which lobbied alongside the host cities for the funding, has every reason to want clarity as well as the days tick down, and the governing body has some political capital. President Gianni Infantino has cultivated a friendly public relationship with President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly described the World Cup as a priority for his administration.

The event’s reliance on government action is, in part, a creation of FIFA’s own making. While putting on an event of this scale inherently involves government at varying levels, FIFA has structured the tournament in a way that depends heavily on host cities and federal support.

On one hand, FIFA expects to generate around $11 billion from this summer’s World Cup. On the other, the city of Foxborough, Mass., is threatening to withhold entertainment licenses necessary to play matches at Gillette Stadium unless someone steps up with $7.8 million for security costs.

Passing much of the operational cost along to the host cities, while highly profitable for FIFA, ties the tournament’s execution to the reliability of municipal, state and federal funding processes and politics.

None of this suggests the 2026 World Cup will be anything short of a commercial and cultural success. The demand is overwhelming, and the energy will be infectious once the competition begins.

Houston’s announcement of a legacy program that will provide more than 1,200 underprivileged children annually with scholarships to local club soccer programs exemplifies the tournament’s potential for lasting community impact.

The process to get there, however, highlights opportunities for improvement going forward, in both the U.S. government’s approach to major events and FIFA’s approach to hosting events in this market ahead of the 2031 Women’s World Cup.

Alex Silverman can be reached at asilverman@sportsbusinessjournal.com.

NEW YORK -- Chris Heck took over as LIV Golf’s president of business operations last June, and in less than nine months, he said the league has “done a 180 on just about every single business unit.”

Heck, CEO Scott O’Neil and other top LIV Golf executives shared an update on the league’s refocused vision and commercial properties to a room of current and potential sponsors and investors as well as reporters on Thursday.

Two key refrains were of LIV’s delicate balancing act as a global league with deepening local roots and as a team sport that also promotes the individual competition. Agronomy partnerships with the USGA and R&A were discussed, but the PGA Tour was never mentioned, as the Saudi-backed LIV instead focused on its points of differentiation.

“This is an age of partnership,” O’Neil said. “This is an age of deescalation.”

Though O’Neil previously said that LIV was five to 10 years away from profitability, he shared concrete milestones on that pathway, telling SBJ in an interview that his goal for the year was to have 10 profitable teams, four profitable events and two LP investments into teams. “We are on our way to that,” he said.

Citi has been retained to help with the team investments, a new area of focus for 2026, and CAA remains LIV’s agency for brand deals.

LIV touted its success in Adelaide, where 115,000 fans attended the Australian tournament that was capped by Anthony Kim’s remarkable comeback victory. Across the tour, ticket sales are up 45% this year after being up 80% last year, while premium sales have grown 20%. LIV EVP/Head of Events Ross Hallett said 25% of all attendees are part of family groups and 30% are watching their first pro golf tournament.

While some of the growth metrics shared were percentage gains that mask the starting point, there were concrete areas of commercial gain. LIV nearly doubled its number of league sponsors in a year, going from 11 in 2024 to 20 in 2025. The brands backing the teams grew exponentially, from nine in 2024 to now 50.

“We are focused on building asset value as 13 teams and turning them into real businesses,” said LIV Golf EVP/Head of Team Business Operations Katie O’Reilly.

Total sponsorship revenue exceeded $500M, as LIV EVP/Global Head of Partnerships Chad Biggs endorsed a spirit of innovation. At the Hong Kong tournament next weekend, HSBC is backing an activation in which Bryson DeChambeau will hit golf balls into Victoria Harbor in a hole-in-one challenge.

“We are not bound by any other league restrictions or rules or guidelines,” Biggs said. “In fact, we’re making up the rules as we go, which is really, really fun.”

O’Neil touted that LIV “is truly the world’s golf league,” noting that its player pool of 57 golfers hail from 21 countries and its 14 tournaments span 10 countries and five continents. And every event location is getting permanent staff to build a network and run operations.

“We are putting people in those markets year-round, 365 days a year,” Heck said. “We have a presence in all 14 stops. That’s unique, that’s new. We cannot manage in an authentic way from afar living in New York. We have to be in those markets.”

Part of those local initiatives involve supporting youth participation, with evidence of interest in golf near Adelaide growing rapidly in the past couple of years. While acknowledging some of that could be coincidence, O’Neil said he’s confident that LIV is having an impact.

“We believe in growing the pie, and we believe that there’s so much opportunity for this world of golf to come together and get more kids with clubs in their hands,” he said. “And we believe that, to do that, it’s better to do it together. And so we would like to -- how would I say it? -- complete, not compete.”

While fourteen NFL teams make the playoffs each year, 18 NFL owners got an A grade in the NFLPA report cards obtained and published by ESPN earlier today.

For all the controversy and fascination around the report cards, the fact is, most players seem to think their owners are doing a good job. In fact, this year, 25 of 32 teams received at least a B- in the “team ownership” category, up from 20 out of 32 last year.

The owners at the bottom of the list are starting to look like severe outliers, in particular the Cardinals’ Michael Bidwill (the only F) and the Steelers’ Art Rooney II (the only D-).

Special attention to three owners who did poorly last year but notably improved: The Jets’ Woody Johnson went from an F to a B; the Panthers’ David Tepper from a D- to a B-; and the Patriots’ Robert Kraft from a D to B-.

We don’t know exactly what questions built into the grades this year, but last year’s survey asked players to rate owners’ “contributions to a positive team culture,” “commitment to building a competitive team” and “perceived willingness to invest in facilities.” The NFLPA did not officially release the report cards this year after the NFL convinced an arbitrator that publishing them violated the union contract.

On Thursday, the NFL sent a memo to teams about the leaked results which said, “We continue to recommend that Clubs prioritize feedback and information provided directly by their own players rather than relying on the NFLPA’s agenda-driven exercise.”

Here’s the rundown of 2026’s scores:

• A+: Broncos, Commanders, Ravens, Vikings
• A: Colts, Dolphins, Falcons, Jaguars, Lions, Raiders, Seahawks, Texans
• A-: 49ers, Bears, Bills, Chargers, Packers, Saints
• B: Cowboys, Eagles, Giants, Jets, Rams
• B-: Panthers, Patriots
• C+: Chiefs
• C: Browns, Titans
• D+: Bengals
• D: Bucs
• D-: Steelers
• F: Cardinals

In April at Monza, sudden rain turned a routine Formula 1 race into a decision-making test. As Max Verstappen pushed through one of the circuit’s fastest corners, the data was complete: tire temperatures, brake pressure, grip levels, predictive models. But when conditions shifted faster than the models could resolve, the decisive input wasn’t analytical, it was instinctive. Verstappen felt the loss of grip before the data could fully register it and adjusted accordingly.

Formula 1 is arguably the most data-informed sport on the planet. Millions of data points stream off every car, lap and corner. Engineers model scenarios down to fractions of a second. Strategy teams simulate outcomes long before the lights go out. And yet moments like Monza expose a reality relevant far beyond motorsport: When environments become volatile, data sets the context, but human judgment still makes the call. Even at the sharpest end of elite performance, F1 understands something many modern brands are in danger of forgetting: When the stakes are highest, human judgment often matters most.

Red Bull Racing has spoken openly about moments where driver feedback has overridden pure engineering logic, particularly in unpredictable conditions like tire degradation or sudden weather shifts. When Verstappen describes grip “falling away” or feeling the balance shift through his hands and body, that lived experience becomes decisive. The data matters, but it validates felt experience rather than delivering the final word.

An inflection point

As a longtime F1 fan and founder of a brand studio and production company, I see marketing facing a similar inflection point. Automation, AI and performance analytics have never been more powerful. According to The Wall Street Journal, more than 80% of ad buying will be AI-driven by 2030. But when it comes to the creative itself, the most resonant work will still come from brands willing to balance rigor with instinct — and to trust experienced human judgment when it counts.

That tension will be especially visible across North American sport in the coming years. With the FIFA World Cup landing in the U.S., the Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina feeding global audiences, and F1 expanding its American footprint alongside leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB and MLS, brands are preparing for moments when attention peaks and decisions must be made in real time. The brands that win will prioritize long-term emotional equity over short-term metrics, using data as a guide, not a crutch.

Human feedback matters most at the edge

In F1, intuition becomes most valuable at the limit, when conditions are unstable and margins disappear. Marketing reaches its own “edge” in moments of peak cultural relevance: live sport, brand reinvention, social flashpoints. At those moments, algorithms optimize for what has already happened — and experienced human judgement becomes the most valuable input.

We’ve seen this play out repeatedly in advertising. Nike’s Colin Kaepernick campaign flew in the face of short-term sentiment data. The backlash was immediate, but the long-term impact was undeniable: a reported 31% lift in online sales and a decisive strengthening of Nike’s brand meaning with its core audience. At the edge, playing it safe rarely moves you forward.

There’s no fixed formula for balancing data and instinct

F1 teams don’t apply the same strategy at Monaco as they do at Monza. There’s no universal setup or fixed ratio of aggression to caution. The craft lies in knowing when to lean on simulation and when to respond in real time.

Marketing works the same way. There is no universal percentage split between data and intuition. Some moments demand restraint; others demand belief. The mistake brands make is searching for a formula when what they need is fluency, an understanding of how and when to switch modes. If there is a rule of thumb, it’s this: Use data to identify opportunity, and instinct to shape meaning.

Why motion matters

Watching F1 drivers in action, so much is communicated via their body motion and demeanor well before lap times register: restraint, composure under pressure, gripping tension as they lean into the curve.

For brands, motion is one of the most powerful ways to convey intent and personality. In a world increasingly optimized for static assets and dashboards, movement brings emotion back into the equation. This is especially true in U.S. sports culture, where broadcast, streaming and social media increasingly define how fans experience leagues and teams. Our work for MLS and MLB, ESPN and the Olympics is grounded in motion to amplify fandom as sports streaming continues to grow.

As sports content shifts further toward short-form and social video, investment in motion design continues to rise. The brands that understand motion as storytelling, not just execution, will stand out.

Emotion is a commercial advantage

The work that resonates most is often the work someone had the courage to back before it was proven. Recent backlash to AI-generated advertising illustrates this clearly. McDonald’s experiment with generative AI creative wasn’t criticized for inefficiency, but for lacking humanity. It felt engineered, not authentic.

Anyone who has spent time on a live-action shoot knows brilliance often comes from moments that can’t be planned: a pause, a look, an unexpected detail. These are moments data can’t predict but audiences instantly resonate with.

According to Kantar, emotionally driven campaigns are four times more likely to drive long-term brand equity than purely rational ones. Emotion isn’t a soft metric, it’s a commercial advantage — especially in today’s evolving landscape.

The future of performance branding

What Monza ultimately illustrates is not a rejection of data, but its limits. Formula 1 doesn’t succeed by choosing instinct over analytics, but by knowing when one must lead the other. F1 understands that championships aren’t won by data alone. They’re won when strategy and instinct work in harmony, and when the right people are empowered to make the right calls at the right moment. Engineers provide data and context, but the driver sits at the tip of the pyramid, deciding how hard to push.

The same should be true in marketing. AI excels at speed, scale and optimization, but as more brands rely on identical tools trained on identical datasets for creative outputs, the work becomes homogeneous. Instinctive, emotion-led storytelling and visuals that stir something within become essential to cut through.

The brands that outperform in the years ahead — particularly across the world’s biggest sporting moments — will be the ones that know when the numbers are enough, and when, like a driver in the rain at Monza, advantage comes from trusting experienced human instinct.

Joe Wright is co-founder and chief creative officer at Sibling Rivalry, a brand studio and film production company.

• The WNBPA is not immediately planning a new strike authorization vote, sources tell SBJ’s Tom Friend, even though what is perceived as a loud minority of players this week began to rethink a potential work stoppage.
• Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment and Comcast Spectacor selected Levy as the food and beverage provider for the in-development Philadelphia arena that will be shared by the 76ers and Flyers, writes SBJ’s Bret McCormick.
• Last Saturday, ESPN had one of its best college basketball days on record as Michigan-Duke delivered 4.3 million viewers, the network’s best regular-season game in seven years, writes SBJ’s Austin Karp. For more viewership numbers, see Friday’s Audience Analysis.
• Unrivaled wraps up its regular season Friday night in Miami and rolls right into the first round of the playoffs on Saturday in Miami, with the semis Monday in Brooklyn and championship Wednesday back in Miami, notes Karp.
• The Indy 500’s attendance resurgence that began with its 100th running a decade ago is still going, and it’s something that IndyCar President Doug Boles attributes to an appetite for live events, good marketing and a hearty word of mouth among Hoosiers, writes SBJ’s Adam Stern.
• Stern also reports that NASCAR is moving its “Full Speed” docuseries from Netflix to Prime Video, and this year’s version is strictly focused on the 2026 Daytona 500.
• The Premier Lacrosse League and Women’s Lacrosse League will get an AI boost in a new deal with IBM, notes SBJ’s Ethan Joyce.
• In this week’s Talent Pool agency roundup, SBJ’s Irving Hilario-Mejia highlights Rosenhaus Sports signing five NFL players.