MLB The Show '26 “Road to the Show”
PlayStation
After scouring conversations across every corner of the internet one thing stood out: the grind. There’s no sport that has more games in a season, and in this mode you grind your way from high school all the way to the majors. To us, that’s more than a grind, it’s a journey of growth. Who you are when you start isn’t going to be who you are when you finish - and that’s exactly what sparked the creative concept.
The Insight
When our partners at PlayStation came to us with an ask to position MLB The Show '26 as a must play experience through a creator campaign focusing on its immersive ‘road to the show’ mode we couldn’t wait to dive in and see what folks were saying about the game. Our creators would embark on their own ‘road to the show’ and throughout their grind they’d be met by a wiser, older, and sometimes zanier version of themselves - one that encourages them to stick with it, because they know how rewarding it ends up being.
The Execution
We were lucky to work with two fantastic creators, Austin Schultz and JUSTICE, with the perfect mix of authentic connection to baseball and the humor needed to land a scene with multiple versions of themselves describing, colorfully, their journey to THE SHOW. Through a little production magic, creative visual blocking, some post production wizardry, way too many sunflower seeds and some really tiny finger dumbbells we were able to create two 3-part series that humorously showcased their grind.
The Results
When our three part series was complete the goal shattering numbers started our story off strong: 18.9M views (170% above goal) and 172K engagements across Reels, TikTok and YouTube Shorts with a 6% organic engagement rate (+51% above goal). The sentiment on every video was overwhelmingly positive with audiences praising the humor and relatability of the topic. Even users who said they weren’t typically fans of the game still loved the ad itself.
The HomeRun
We avoided the dreaded ‘sellout’ or ‘ugh it’s an ad’ discourse as we saw Austin and JUSTICE'S fan bases become extremely excited for them celebrating their partnership with MLBTS and expressing intent to pre-order or purchase after seeing the ad. And while we love great stats and social convo, we love sales more: MLB The Show '26 enjoyed the franchise’s second-strongest launch since the series’ debut in 2006 and was the top-selling game across all platforms for March (despite being out for only 2 weeks of the month), and it’s already the second-highest selling game of the year behind Capcom’s Resident Evil: Requiem. We’ll call that a home run.