Kalshi Confirms Five MLB Deals It Had Been Running Unannounced

The Dodgers, Red Sox, Braves, Padres and Giants are Kalshi partners, and had been for weeks before anyone said so. Three of the five are in California, where no state lawsuit has been filed and the lobbying has already started.

• Kalshi announced partnerships with the Atlanta Braves, Boston Red Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants on 25 August, a day after Sportico reported that several of the deals were already running without any announcement
• The Braves activated their agreement around the start of August, the Dodgers added Kalshi to their outfield signage rotation and put a decal behind home plate, and the Red Sox used Kalshi branding in a series preview and emailed their marketing list, all without a press release
• Three of the five clubs are in California, where the attorney general has still not sued a prediction market operator and where the Coalition for Prediction Markets spent $50,000 between April and July lobbying his office and the governor's
• The Red Sox deal covers a state whose court has already found that Kalshi needs a sports betting licence, a ruling stayed while the company appeals
• The New York Yankees are partnered with Polymarket and the Mets with Novig, and Major League Baseball itself agreed a deal with Polymarket in March permitting use of official team names and branding

Five Clubs, Announced Only After Somebody Else Found Them

Kalshi confirmed on 25 August that it has agreements with five Major League Baseball franchises. Adam Barrick, the company's head of sports partnerships, framed the deals as an extension of behaviour that already exists, saying that fans are engaging with their teams on Kalshi and that it therefore makes sense to extend that fandom to the clubs themselves.

The confirmation followed a Sportico report published the previous day which established that at least three of the agreements were already live and had never been announced. The Braves activated theirs around the start of August, including Kalshi's logo behind home plate at some home games, and it went unnoticed. The Dodgers added Kalshi to the digital outfield signage rotation earlier in the month and placed a decal behind home plate on the Friday and Sunday of the weekend before the announcement. The Red Sox put the Kalshi logo into a social media graphic previewing their three-game series against the Giants and sent an email to their marketing list encouraging recipients to use the app. None of it came with a press release or a social post.

The disclosed terms are substantial. Kalshi says its Dodgers agreement includes branded LED signage around Dodger Stadium, naming rights to the stadium's Gold Glove Bar, and fan offers and on-site activations in Centerfield Plaza across the season. The company gave no specifics for the Braves, Padres or Giants beyond saying that all the partnerships include in-stadium signage together with social, online, radio and fan activations. Troup Parkinson, the Red Sox executive vice-president and chief marketing and partnerships officer, described Kalshi as the club's official and exclusive prediction market partner and pointed to activation across Fenway Park and the team's digital and broadcast channels.

The legal position varies sharply between the five markets. In Massachusetts, Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell sued Kalshi in September last year on the argument that offering sports prediction markets requires a sports betting licence, and a judge agreed. Kalshi appealed to the state's highest court and obtained a stay, so it continues to operate there while the appeal is pending. Asked whether promoting a company a state court has ruled against gave them pause, the Red Sox did not respond. California, home to three of the five clubs, has taken no such action: Attorney General Rob Bonta filed an amicus brief against Kalshi in Ohio but has brought no case of his own.

Kalshi is not the only exchange in the sport. The Yankees are partnered with Polymarket and the Mets with Novig, the latter announced in July to a wave of hostile replies on X that the club deleted and reposted. MLB agreed its own deal with Polymarket in March, allowing the platform to use official team names and branding, which is what makes club-level agreements possible at all.

The Silence Was the Strategy, and It Lasted About Three Weeks

The most revealing thing about these five deals is not their size but the decision to run them without saying anything. Prediction market sponsorships have become a reputational liability for the clubs rather than the exchanges, and the Mets provided the case study: an announcement, a swarm of angry replies, a deletion, a second attempt and more of the same. The Dodgers, Red Sox and Braves appear to have concluded that the money is worth having and the announcement is not, and took the signage without the statement. It worked until a reporter noticed the decal behind home plate. What follows is a familiar sequence in this sector: the story becomes the concealment rather than the deal, and a company that has spent the year arguing it is a regulated financial exchange has to explain why its baseball sponsorships arrived by stealth.

Three of Five in California Is a Strategy, Not a Coincidence

California is the largest prospective market in the United States and has no legal sports betting. It is also, uniquely among the big states, one where the attorney general has not sued a prediction market operator, and where the industry is spending to keep it that way. The Coalition for Prediction Markets, founded in December 2025 with Kalshi, Crypto.com, Coinbase, Robinhood and Underdog among its members, disclosed $50,000 of California lobbying between April and July through Redwood Public Affairs, whose founder Evan Corder is Bonta's former legislative director and chief of staff. The same coalition paid $100,000 to the advisory firm Invariant for federal lobbying in the second quarter. Kalshi's own federal lobbying in the first half of the year is reported at more than $1.7 million, with at least $160,000 more spent in California. Buying visibility inside three California stadiums while lobbying the office that would have to bring any case is a coherent plan, and its coherence is the point: this is not marketing that happens to be in California, it is marketing that is in California because of what has not happened there yet.

Massachusetts Is the Deal That Should Not Exist

A court in Massachusetts has held that what Kalshi offers is sports betting requiring a licence. The ruling is stayed, so the conduct continues lawfully for now, but the finding stands and the appeal could confirm it. Signing the state's most prominent sports brand in that position is either a calculated statement that the company expects to win, or an acceptance that the sponsorship is worth the risk of unwinding it. Neither reading is comfortable for the Red Sox, whose refusal to answer the question suggests the club has not settled on an answer. Compare it with the Washington geofencing, where Kalshi withdrew rather than accrue penalties, or with Connecticut, where a judge rejected the company's entire legal theory. The pattern across those cases is a company that concedes ground when the cost is immediate and holds it when the cost is deferred, and a sponsorship is a deferred cost.

Sport Is Now the Battleground Rather Than the Product

Two years ago the argument about prediction markets was conducted in filings and hearings. It is now being conducted on outfield signage. Every club that signs makes it fractionally harder for a state to argue that the product is an unfamiliar financial instrument rather than sports betting, because the branding says otherwise to millions of people a season, and every state that watches a stadium fill with exchange logos while its own licensed operators pay tax has a political problem to answer for. Kalshi has understood this more clearly than its opponents: the North Carolina tax it agreed to pay and the stadium deals it has just confirmed are the same argument made two ways, that this is a normal part of the sports economy and should be treated like one.

The five clubs have decided the money is worth it. The interesting question is what the first state to sue a baseball team's marketing department decides.