Yankees reach $10 million sponsorship deal with TikTok despite President Trump’s attempts to ban the app
President Donald Trump may be trying to ban TikTok from the country, but the New York Yankees aren’t shying away from the popular social media app.
The Yankees and the YES Network signed a sponsorship deal with TikTok on Tuesday, according to Sportico.
The deal has been in the works for about six months, per the report, and will expire if Trump’s ban is actually implemented. If the app is sold or Trump’s ban is not implemented, the sponsorship will run for two more years.
The deal will pay the Yankees about $10 million, and give them team-branded content on the app. TikTok will also receive branded signs at Yankee Stadium, per the report.
President Trump attempts to ban TikTok
Trump has had his sights on TikTok and WeChat, two Chinese-owned social media apps, for weeks now. He announced earlier this week that they would “bar people and property within the U.S. jurisdictions from carrying out ‘transactions’ ” with the two apps by mid-September, but “did not define what those transactions included,” according to The New York Times.
Trump has also pushed Microsoft to purchase TikTok, and said that the United States Treasury should receive a “very big proportion” of the sale price, according to the Times — something that added to the confusion surrounding the status of the app.
Regardless, the Yankees seem unfazed about TikTok’s uncertain future in the United States and are moving forward.
TikTok — similar to Musical.ly or Vine before it — was launched in 2016 and has quickly become one of the most popular social media apps worldwide, especially with younger generations.
With Major League Baseball continuing to work on securing a younger audience, TikTok is certainly a great way to do that — as long as it sticks around.
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