M.L.B. Playoff Ads With Sydney Sweeney and Megan Fox Draw Backlash

Baseball is an American pastime. So, too, is taking to social media with an opinion.

The two sandlots of democracy overlapped this week, as a series of steamy commercials aired ad nauseam during the Major League Baseball playoffs. Casual fans had much to say about sexualized ads featuring Sydney Sweeney promoting a gambling prediction market and Megan Fox endorsing a male enhancement product.

Then, on Wednesday, a player entered the fray.

“Can we please get the soft porn ads off playoff broadcasts,” Alex Call, a left fielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers who was not on the postseason roster, wrote on social media. (The Dodgers missed their chance at reaching another World Series after losing the National League Championship Series to the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday.)

“My son wants to watch baseball with Dada,” but, he warned, “half-naked women could come on screen anytime.”

His post was a reply to one by Taylor Murphy, an entrepreneur who wrote that the commercials risked alienating children from the sport: “Just show baseball in a way I can leave on in my house.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/16/business/media/mlb-playoffs-commercials-sydney-sweeney-novig.html