ADWEEK

?? The March issue of ADWEEK is here. ?? Major League Baseball enters its 2025 season with the winds of change firmly at its back after two straight years of increased attendance, TV viewership, and media visibility. More than 71.3 million fans went to MLB games in 2024, an 11% increase over 2022. Viewership at home is way up as well: Fox’s 2024 World Series broadcast averaged 15.8 million viewers, the highest since 2017. The 2025 season will start with a two-game Tokyo Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs on March 18-19. It will be the biggest standalone international event the league has ever put on, and mark MLB’s return to Japan after six years with several home-grown superstars on both teams. And if you really want proof that it’s a new era in baseball, New York Yankees players are finally allowed to have facial hair again for the 2025 season after a 49-year ban. Read more — https://adweek.it/43zaC07

Today’s sports fans are more diverse and engaged than ever, and digital audio is their go-to. With 78% of listeners taking action after hearing a sports audio ad, our new story with SiriusXM Media provides insights on how brands can use digital audio as a powerful medium to connect with fans. #sponsored https://adweek.it/428TpbN

EXCLUSIVE | Anger. Adderall. Airplanes. WIZ KHALIFA. Brooklyn-based indie ad agency Madwell, a once-thriving creative powerhouse, has found itself embroiled in controversy. The agency has faced significant challenges under the leadership of Chris Sojka, who took full operational control following a legal dispute with co-founder David Eisenman in 2024. With reports of missed payroll, allegations of extravagant spending—including a $17.5 million private jet purchase—and claims of erratic leadership behavior, Sojka has led Madwell down a troubling path. The contrast between the agency's celebrated past and its current struggles highlights a stark transformation in company culture and financial management. Read the full story — https://adweek.it/4hMLxm4

#Breaking — R/GA has been appointed as LinkedIn Ads’ global strategic creative agency after a competitive pitch process, ADWEEK has learned. This marks a major win for R/GA as it embarks on a new era of independent ownership and technology-driven creativity. While details on the work remain under wraps, sources say R/GA will develop a new global creative strategy for LinkedIn Ads, with campaigns rolling out later this year. Additional reporting comes from Brittaney Kiefer. https://lnkd.in/gjn3TQCk #agencies #advertising #marketing #linkedin #b2b #b2c

LinkedIn has appointed R/GA as global strategic creative agency for LinkedIn Ads following a competitive pitch process, ADWEEK has learned. https://adweek.it/4kX6GN0

And that's a wrap for me at #Shoptalk. Had a blast meeting with so many retail, marketing, and tech execs this week. I also wrote 2 stories for ADWEEK while in Vegas: 1. PayPal's Jenna (Mariano) Griffith, Harvey Ma from Sam's Club, and Nordstrom's Aaron Dunford spoke about how they're looking to grow their existing ad businesses—including a surprising amount of old-school marketing tactics: https://lnkd.in/g7gtjanQ 2. I interviewed SharkNinja CEO Mark Barrocas about how the maker of dozens of household products spends $700 million a year on ads, including the brand's upcoming cameo in the new AppleTV+ movie F1: https://lnkd.in/g5jsYhQm

A bit of advice: When the CEO of Overtime appears in your inbox looking to discuss basketball and manga, say yes. Just before I was about to leave ADWEEK for a long trip to Madrid in November, Dan Porter contacted me and told me about the manga series he and his team had created on WEBTOON for his Overtime Elite basketball league. Not only were many of the young players in his league into manga and anime, but the fans he was trying to reach overlapped heavily with manga readers. “I remember two summers ago going to Paris, London, Venice for the Biennale, just a little European jaunt, and in every city you go to, they sell shirts that say ‘Venice’ or whatever—there were so many anime shirts that were sold with that,” Porter said during a series of exclusive interviews with ADWEEK. “Once you see it, you start to see it everywhere, and then I would go out to dinner in London and realize somebody’s wearing an Attack on Titan shirt, and now I’m in the club.” Overtime teamed with webtoon and manga studio?Laurel Pursuit Studios, comic artist?Innupen, and writer?Brandon Chen?on a 32-episode Overtime Elite Manga The story follows streetball player Omari’s quest for a professional career as a shadowy figure’s invitation to Overtime Elite Academy pits his resolve against superhuman talent. Overtime launched its manga at a time when the medium’s popularity in the United States is surging. Circana BookScan noted that manga sales rose from 5.52 million copies in 2018 to 28.4 million in 2022 before falling back to 17.8 million in 2023—the last year for which information was available. While Overtime Elite’s relationship with manga and anime beyond the Webtoons series has thus far been limited to artwork at its arena in Atlanta and a merchandise collaboration with The Pokémon Company International, Porter sees a chance to turn anime fans into Overtime Elite fans and to connect the league with other corners of culture as it has with?Gunna, NLE Choppa and other members of the hip-hop community. “How do you reach an audience segment? You show them things that look and feel like them,” Porter said. “If you want every 17-year-old in America to love you, you show them 17-year-olds who they relate to. You’ve got to program for who your audience is, and you’ve got to be sensitive to what resonates with them.” Story: https://lnkd.in/g5j3fSyH

New: Ownership of the algorithm is just one of the wrinkles impacting Oracle's bid to take over TikTok before the April 5 deadline. Sources believe the ban deadline is?likely to get extended—while Oracle might have the data chops to take on TikTok, the?closure?of its ad business last year, plus the potential culture clash between a corporate B2B firm and a social media platform, present challenges. My latest for ADWEEK

New for ADWEEK: Nielsen and Acxiom announced a new partnership that will sync Acxiom?Real ID with the Nielsen ID system, enabling agencies and marketers to seamlessly leverage their Real ID audiences in Nielsen One for cross-platform and data-driven linear media. Through the collaboration, IPG marketers and agencies will be able to identify, reach, measure, and optimize messaging and media experiences to the audiences that matter most with scale and precision at the audience level.

Legendary heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson stars in Dr. Dr. Squatch's new campaign, and it's a knockout. https://adweek.it/4cai8Rp