Play ball! Why fall baseball is a grand slam for reaching Agenda Setters

by David Farnoush

Everyone talks about the Super Bowl as the gold standard for sports advertising. But the most undervalued buy of the year might actually be fall baseball. Less crowded, more local, and stretched across hours of live, leaned-in viewing — it’s a surprisingly powerful way to meet Agenda Setters.

The MLB playoffs are one of those rare cultural moments when policy insiders, media elites, and business leaders are watching live TV outside of news.

They’ve got skin in the game. Their hometown teams are in contention, they’re watching with their families, or they’re following marquee matchups that dominate the sports news cycle.

In other words: this is a moment when your audience is already tuned in — and the Agenda Setter MLB fandom runs deep. Compared to the general population, Agenda Setters are far more likely to tune into the MLB postseason, across the political spectrum:

Independents

🍺 305x more likely to watch the Milwaukee Brewers

Republicans 

🐦 457x more likely to watch the Toronto Blue Jays

🔱 239x more likely to watch the Seattle Mariners

Democrats

🍺 281x more likely to watch the Milwaukee Brewers

🔱 242x more likely to watch the Seattle Mariners

And even though their teams have already been eliminated, Democrat Agenda Setters were 267x more likely to watch the Cubs; Republican Agenda Setters were 266x more likely to watch the Tigers; and Independent Agenda Setters 226x more likely to watch the Yankees.

You don’t need a multimillion-dollar sponsorship to show up here. Programmatic makes it easy to “dip your toe” into sports without going full bore.

• Target specific geos, games, or audience segments via private marketplace (PMP) or CTV deals.
• Buy against matchups, DMA clusters, or fan affinities without locking into rigid sports packages.
• Treat it as a test-and-scale environment: learn fast this fall, go bigger next year if it works.

This is a low-friction, high-impact way to insert your brand into a live cultural moment — exactly where Agenda Setters are already focusing their attention. Engaging Agenda Setters during cultural moments like the MLB playoffs intercepts them outside of the saturated news environment where they are typically targeted and offers a rare opportunity to connect with these influential policy insiders and business leaders when they are leaned-in, emotionally invested, and focused on live content. This provides a less crowded and more authentic channel to build influence exactly where this valuable audience is already concentrating its attention.