Complex · Commerce
World Baseball Classic × UNDEFEATED × Born x Raised
For a global World Baseball Classic launch, I made five national-team expressions from UNDEFEATED and Born x Raised coherent and shoppable in one Complex destination, while individual stories traveled through partner channels.
- Owned
- Director of Merchandising at Complex; owned digital strategy, site merchandising, launch-page/storefront production, and assortment presentation for the combined online launch
February 19–March 17, 2026
Global event → five national-team identities → two collaborators → one Complex destination
- UNDEFEATED
- USA · Japan · Puerto Rico · Dominican Republic
- Born x Raised
- Mexico
- Partner channels
- Individual country/collaborator stories
Chronicle4 beats
February 19 — Tease
The public sequence began on February 19, before the tournament. The first idea to communicate was scale: a global event was coming, with five national-team identities and two streetwear collaborators moving toward the same launch.
Unlike the club work familiar around MLB, this collection was organized around countries. The tease had to build anticipation for a tournament that had not yet begun while leaving each national team's identity intact.
February 24 — Announce
On February 24, the announcement made the collaboration easy to understand. UNDEFEATED interpreted USA, Japan, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic; Born x Raised took on Mexico. Across jerseys and sportswear, each brought its own point of view to national-team identity through classic baseball silhouettes.
The expressions were distinct, but they belonged to one coordinated World Baseball Classic collection. The announcement let each team and collaborator register without making the launch feel like five unrelated country drops.
February 26 — Launch
On February 26, the collection went on sale as one coordinated launch, with the full collection in one Complex destination. Complex helped bring the program together and ran the surrounding campaign and commerce launch. My part was digital strategy, site merchandising, launch-page and storefront production, and assortment presentation.
The hard part was making five national identities and two collaborators read clearly and stay shoppable without flattening them into one generic campaign. The Complex storefront carried the program as a whole; the country and collaborator stories traveled through the partners’ own channels.
March 5–17 — The tournament takes over
From March 5 through March 17, the products were already live and the national teams were playing. The event the collection had been built around had arrived, giving the jerseys, sportswear, and country identities their live context.
As I remember it, the launch was successful, marketing and partner support were strong, and the execution was generally smooth. What stayed with me was that respecting each identity did not require splitting the collection across several Complex storefronts. One destination could hold the program together while the partner channels carried the individual stories.