Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie, and … Baja Blast? <\/p>\n
Pepsi\u2019s Mountain Dew Baja Blast, a teal-colored, lime-flavored carbonated beverage, is MLB\u2019s new official soft drink.<\/p>\n
PepsiCo VP Marketing\/Flavored Sparkling Beverages Michael Smith said his company\u2019s new MLB sponsorship dovetails well with Baja Blast\u2019s Gen Z\/multicultural\/Hispanic-led core consumer.<\/p>\n
\u201c[MLB] was the right property, rising at the right time, with key summer seasonality,\u201d Smith said. \u201cMajor League Baseball has a long history with Hispanic consumers and within its player profiles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pepsi\u2019s multiyear sponsorship, which took more than a year to complete, ends a six-year stretch in which MLB had no soda sponsor. The sponsorship will be supported by a nationwide frequency\/loyalty promotion, \u201cGet a Baja for a Blast,\u201d that will offer Pepsi and MLB rewards tied to home runs (aka blasts) with longer HRs and HRs in MLB jewel events earning bigger rewards.<\/p>\n
No word on whether there\u2019s a connection to the annual Home Run Derby, held the night before the MLB All-Star Game. T-Mobile has title-sponsored that event since 2016.<\/p>\n
MLB Deputy Commissioner for Business and Media Noah Garden and PepsiCo Beverages U.S. President Mike Del Pozzo are scheduled to celebrate the deal Thursday morning by ringing the opening bell at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York City\u2019s Times Square.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe love to talk about perception\/reality when it comes to baseball, and the fact they are using MLB to reach Gen Z and Hispanics should tell you everything about our fans,\u201d said MLB SVP\/CMO Uzma Rawn Dowler (a 2025 SBJ Forty Under 40 Hall of Fame inductee<\/a>). \u201cWe\u2019re helping to tell each other\u2019s brand story. … I remember [Pepsi Beverages CMO] Mark Kirkham sitting with us when Aaron Judge hit a home run in the World Series [Game 5, Oct. 10, 2024] saying to me, \u2018That\u2019s a Baja Blast.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Pepsi\u2019s marketing objectives<\/a> with this sponsorship are focused on generating trial.<\/p>\n \u201cAwareness with Baja is incredibly strong,\u201d Smith said. \u201cHowever, trial hasn\u2019t kept pace with that awareness, so we have a huge opportunity just getting people to try it. When they do, they repeat at a very high rate.\u201d<\/p>\n Covering a new base<\/p>\n This is MLB\u2019s first time with a non-cola beverage as its lead carbonated soft drink. For Mountain Dew, the choice of MLB is intriguing, since the brand has generally been associated with edgier properties, like action sports stars, and its eponymous Dew Tour, which is now 21 years old and without winter sports. Mountain Dew has also been a sponsor within NASCAR, including drivers Darrell Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a long history with more action-oriented sports,\u201d Smith said. \u201cBut our core [Baja Blast] consumer is younger, more multicultural, more urban and more coastal than [original] Mountain Dew, so we found a match.\u201d<\/p>\n While MLB has been without a CSD sponsor since the end of the 2019 season, the $55 billion-plus U.S. carbonated soft drink market remained a sponsorship essential at the team level. Coke had MLB marketing rights from the 2017 season through 2019. Prior to that, Pepsi had league-wide rights from 1997. Across MLB\u2019s 30 teams, Pepsi has just a handful of deals, leaving Coke with a vast 4-to-1 edge in team pouring and marketing rights.<\/p>\n Longtime PepsiCo sports\/experiential agency Genesco Sports Enterprises<\/a> helped negotiate the deal for Pepsi and is handling activation.<\/p>\n Now close to a billion-dollar brand, Baja Blast launched in 2004 as an exclusive fountain offering within Taco Bell, where it\u2019s still sold. It has since become a top-selling Mountain Dew brand extension and grown into a permanent retail offering in 2024. Pepsi saw enough sales potential to back Baja Bash with Super Bowl ads in 2024<\/a> and 2025.<\/p>\n Originally intended as a transient LTO, or \u201climited-time offering,\u201d Baja Blast, with its popularity, has generated an abundance of brand extensions, such as Baja Blast Zero Sugar, Baja Cabo Citrus<\/a> and Baja Midnight<\/a>. Its success has also spawned LTOs of what was an LTO, including Baja Mango Gem<\/a>, Gold<\/a>, Baja Caribbean Splash<\/a>, Baja Laguna Lemonade<\/a> and Baja Point Break Punch<\/a>.<\/p>\n