They both have bats and innings, so it’s natural that the Toronto Blue Jays are hoping to lure cricket fans to the ballpark and attract a broader, more diverse fanbase in the process.

Jamaican cricket star Chris Gayle, regarded by some to be one of the best players of all time, threw out the first pitch at a Blue Jays game in June. A replica cricket jersey featuring the Blue Jays logo was also given away to 15,000 fans in attendance.

Gayle has now been featured in creative content capturing his visit to Toronto, seeing the city’s landmarks and trying his hand at baseball with Blue Jays players before eventually throwing out the pitch. The campaign, led by agency Ethnicity Matters, is backed by a paid media plan featuring direct buys on ethnic media channels, a broader digital buy with Meta and digital OOH in condo buildings that over-indexed with South Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities.

The effort is a means of authentically activating with South Asian and Afro-Caribbean communities, as well as driving sustained awareness of the sport of baseball, which has many similarities with that of cricket, explains Sheldon Kiernan, the Blue Jays’ director of brand and digital marketing.

When it comes to Gayle’s involvement in game-day activities, he “immediately rose to the top,” in terms of someone who’d be a great fit, Kiernan explains. Gayle, also known by his nickname “Universe Boss,” has represented the West Indies internationally, but also played extensively in Bangalore in the Indian Premier League, so is uniquely positioned to unite fanbases across two continents.

Jessica Wood, director of promotions for the Blue Jays, says the team’s promotional activities are now a combination of more traditional baseball events, like bobblehead giveaway, and adding Carnival and Pride celebrations to the mix as well, which have the opportunity to bring people together through sport.

Learning was a two-way street as well. During the event at the Rogers Centre, Gayle was joined at batting practice by cricket luminaries, while fans were able to explore a Cricket Canada memorabilia display that showed iconic moments and memorabilia to learn more about the game. Fans could also join batting and bowling simulators, while kids could design their own cricket bat.

Wood tells strategy the cricket outreach is about attracting an audience beyond its core of downtown Toronto denizens and jump-starting conversations about the game in diverse communities, something she says the team has already seen with the keen interest in the jerseys from Cricket Day.

“Jerseys traditionally perform the best for us, whether it’s a player jersey or a collaborative jersey like this,” she says. “People are interested and still wearing them at the ballpark.”

According to Wood, qualitatively, there were cricket fans wearing merch at the ballpark, and quantitatively, post-purchase and attendance surveys were “very high,” and that demographics were more diverse, “a big win for us.”

Kiernan says Gayle’s appearance also spurred lots of earned media among ethnic outlets. Thus far, there has been a 10% lift above the creative baseline, with digital performing particularly well, Kiernan says.

When it comes to drawing fans more generally, the team this year, which ranks in the top 10 in attendance, says it is benefiting from Rogers Centre revamped fan experience, as well as the pitch-timer rule change, which has decreased the length of time of a normal MLB game, on average, by around 20 minutes.