Fox Sports Looks to Bring Political Ads to Baseball Games

Derek Jeter’s final home game as a New York Yankee drew a record audience on the team’s YES Network in 2014, surprising no one. But Stephen Ullman, who oversees political ad sales for YES Network majority owner Fox Sports, was puzzled about why there was so little campaign advertising during the breaks, just a few weeks before a gubernatorial election in New York. Conversations with people overseeing ad buys for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s reelection campaign, which ran a spot during the Jeter game, offered an insight: Campaigns often don’t think of local or regional sports channels such as YES Network when they buy airtime. Many advisers “sort of live by the old dogma, which is that you’ve got to start every political buy with buying in the news,” says Jeff Link, chief executive officer of Analytics Media Group, which advised the Cuomo campaign.

Ullman and Fox Sports are looking to change that. Baseball’s season peaks in late October, just before the presidential election, but with primaries still to be contested in major states including New York, which votes April 19, the company sees a chance to gain a bigger share of the estimated $4.4 billion candidates and super-PACs will spend on TV advertising this election. “Most home team games are the No. 1 prime-time program,” says Ullman. “Everybody—mothers, fathers, daughters, grandparents—is watching.”