YouTube used game one of the World Series on Tuesday night to promote its fledgling live pay-TV service with an elaborate ad incorporating live footage.
In a two-minute commercial that aired right before the first pitch, live commentary from the broadcast booth where Joe Buck and John Smoltz called the game morphs into an extended pitch for YouTube TV.
As their discussion continues, the camera zooms out from the on-field footage to a TV set in someone's living room, which features the same actual live footage from the stadium.
The rest of the ad showcases Fox content that's available on YouTube TV and the different ways that subscribers can watch programming through the service.
YouTube TV, a sponsor of the World Series, will also air at least two 30-second spots as well as 6-second ads during each game.
YouTube introduced the service earlier this year, joining an increasingly crowded field of internet-based pay-TV services trying to capture customers uninterested in traditional cable and satellite services.
Working live footage into the ad was a bid to keep viewers from tuning out at the onset of a commercial break. In Super Bowl LI in February, Tide showed viewers an ad that seemed to begin with live footage of game commentators, but in reality had mocked up an elaborate simulation ahead of time.
