New Rules Can Create New Partnership Opportunities: How MLB and T-Mobile Turned Automated Balls and Strikes Into a Sponsorship Home Run

By Adam Grossman

One of the most talked about stories in Major League Baseball this season has nothing to do with a player, trade, or contract.

It is the Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System, and T-Mobile’s brand is associated with every single review.

The ABS Challenge System allows players to challenge home plate umpire ball and strike calls using Hawk-Eye tracking technology transmitted over T-Mobile’s 5G private network. Just four days into the regular season, there were 124 challenges across 35 games with 54% of challenged calls overturned. As ESPN’s Jeff Passan wrote after opening weekend, the review graphic is “a little mystery box that more often than not reveals itself in an important moment.”

The early consensus is that ABS makes the game better and T-Mobile’s partnership with MLB substantially more valuable. T-Mobile is the Official Wireless Partner of MLB through 2028, but ABS has created an entirely new activation platform.

Each challenge embeds T-Mobile’s brand in one of the most suspenseful moments in the game. This includes activating simultaneously across in-venue (videoboard graphics), broadcast (logo exposure in every telecast review), social media (owned and earned content from teams and fans), and content creators (organic and influencer posts about the system).

What makes this partnership particularly instructive is how proactively both organizations prepared. MLB began testing ABS in its minor leagues in 2022, refining the system over seven seasons and thousands of games. T-Mobile deployed its private 5G infrastructure across all 29 U.S. MLB stadiums over 18 months. This well before ABS was formally approved by the Joint Competition Committee in September 2025.

Both organizations also had the benefit of watching automated officiating in other sports. The ATP announced in 2023 that all tour events would adopt electronic line calling by 2025, and the U.S. Open made the switch permanent in 2022. This proactive preparation allowed T-Mobile and MLB to capture brand exposure during the highest-attention period rather than scrambling to activate after the fact.

ABS is the latest example of the MLB has used rule changes to drive partnership revenue. When MLB introduced the pitch clock in 2023, teams’ sponsorship revenue surged 23% to more than $1.5 billion. As Marketing Dive reported, attendance increased 9.6% to its highest level since 2017. The pitch clock alone was estimated to be worth upwards of $10 million as a standalone sponsorship asset. ABS has the potential to generate similar or greater value given the frequency and visibility of challenges across every game.

Lessons Learned: How Sports Properties Can Turn Rule Changes Into Partnership Opportunities

The T-Mobile and MLB ABS partnership offers a playbook for how leagues, teams, and events can proactively identify how rule changes can increase fan engagement and create new partnership opportunities.

Use Testing Periods as Partnership Development Windows

MLB did not wait until ABS was approved to begin working with T-Mobile. Properties testing rule changes in developmental leagues or preseason formats should simultaneously identify which companies could benefit from sponsoring those changes and use the testing period to sell the partnership before the rule is formally adopted.

Monitor How Similar Changes Are Received in Other Sports

MLB and T-Mobile benefited from watching the ATP and WTA’s experience with electronic line calling. Properties should study how comparable changes have been received in other sports to both refine the change itself and position the sponsorship opportunity.

Identify Rule Changes That Create Recurring, High-Attention Moments

The ABS challenge creates a pause in action where every fan is focused on the same branded graphic. Properties should evaluate proposed rule changes for whether they create natural “partnership moments” that occur frequently enough to generate meaningful brand exposure across a season.

Activate Across All Channels From Day One

The highest-value media exposure comes in the first days and weeks when a change is generating the most discussion. Properties should help partners develop multi-channel activation plans ready to launch the moment a rule change takes effect.

Frame Rule Changes as Fan Engagement Innovations

MLB positioned ABS as a fan engagement innovation rather than solely a competitive fairness measure. This framing connects the rule change to the metrics sponsors care about most: fan attention, engagement, and brand exposure.

Think Beyond Traditional Partnership Categories

T-Mobile’s partnership works because the company’s core product, its 5G network, is integral to the technology powering ABS. Properties should consider which companies have products that can be authentically embedded in a rule change rather than simply having their logo placed on it.

Rule changes are inevitable across all sports. The organizations that view these changes as partnership development opportunities, and begin planning well before implementation, will be best positioned to maximize both fan engagement and partnership revenues.