MLB Ditched Its Ad Agencies. Here's How It's Making Money Now.

The Los Angeles Dodgers generated $101 million in social media value last season — 2.51 billion impressions, 122 million engagements — entirely from team accounts, according to a Zoomph study. No agency cut. No external production fee. No brief-to-delivery lag.

"Content has gone, over the years, from kind of a support function to now being the main driver of the business," said Bobby Clemens, New York Mets vice president of creative content. That shift is reshaping how Major League Baseball franchises allocate production budgets. Teams across the league are building internal creative studios capable of end-to-end digital content production, replacing the agency relationships that defined sports marketing for decades.

The Seattle Mariners ended their long-running partnership with Copacino Fujikado and now produce all video content in-house. This offseason's slate included four digital shorts — among them a viral concept built around catcher Cal Raleigh's alter ego, "Hal Baleigh." The Mets went further, launching a multi-part documentary series on YouTube following the signing of Juan Soto, then building standing franchises: "Inside The Diamond" and "On the Road," each with presenting sponsors.

The sponsorship layer

In-house production lowers cost of content. Branded series add a revenue line. The margin math on content starts to look different when both sides of the ledger move.

Access becomes the structural advantage no agency can replicate. "We get to know them on a more human level, so we have insights into their personalities... more so than an external agency just coming in cold would have," said Keri Zierler, Mariners creative director, describing player relationships built over years in the farm system. Catcher Cal Raleigh now participates in brainstorming sessions. Pitcher George Kirby requested a scripted line after his first appearance.

The Milwaukee Brewers have pushed furthest into creative differentiation. Their "Grand Theft Auto"-styled day-in-the-life video for outfielder Sal Frelick and a digital trick shot featuring pitcher Jacob Misiorowski were designed explicitly to attract peer-team attention, not just fans. "We want other teams to look at us for inspiration," said Ezra Siegel, Brewers senior manager of content — a competitive claim inside a content arms race where reach alone stopped being the metric.

As local broadcast revenue contracts — nine MLB clubs have now exited their FanDuel deals following Main Street Sports Group's collapse — the in-house studio is becoming part of how teams engineer alternative sponsorship and brand-building infrastructure. Owned content doesn't replace rights fee revenue. But it compounds.