PLAYERS MANHOLES
Brand
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
Entrant Agency
WIEDEN+KENNEDY
Category
Industry Craft
Award
Shortlist
Festival & Year
Cannes Lions (2026)
Case Study Details
Wieden+Kennedy Tokyo for MLB Japan
Presentation Board
N
bio HOMETOWN HEROES
+ JAPAN’S MAJOR LEAGUERS GET IMMORTALIZED IN THEIR HOMETOWNS-ONE MANHOLE AT A TIME
2 $i3m = o36K
Player Manholes Local Advertising IRL Manhole
inHometowns Value in Japan Visitors:
Baseball is the oldest major: Teague in the world-149 years. To, celebrate_Japan's generation i, MLB stars, we created -a-kind player ia. §
It's always been “America's pastime,” but in Japan, anationof the _ installed them in-each player's hor In Japan, manhol yt just it re, they're
mostloyalfans,therehasneverbeenawaytopermanentlycelebrate cultural canvases. Public monut street level. Each mamhole was designed by a Japanese
theirown heroes. Japanese-born MLB playersarehavingamoment _ illustrator and placed in a loc ‘ul to thaliplayer's'story. For fans, these Just
= in 2025, With Shohei Ohtani asthe global face of baseball anda —_placesonamap. They became shrines. Onthe surface, they're publicart. Buttomillions¢
wave of starsmakingheadiines, Japan’sinfluenceonMLBhasnever fans, they became something bigger: proof that their players, their towns, their culture, belong in
beenstronger. Yet most of these players’ storiesbeganfarfromthe __ baseball’sglobalstory. Throughillustration, placementandaugmented reality, thestoriesof Japan's
spotlight,on the other side of theworld. Onlocalfields,schoolyards _greatest baseball exports were literally embedded in the streets where they began. Find one. Step
and quiet neighborhoods across Japan. intothe playerstory.
