The pros and cons of Yankee Stadium’s rally hype light show
The Yankees have begun to heavily incorporate strobe lights into the Stadium experience.
NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 08: A detail shot of a full moon over the stadium lights during the game between the Houston Astros and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on Friday, August 8, 2025 in New York, New York. (Photo by Michael Mooney/MLB Photos via Getty Images) | MLB Photos via Getty Images It’s been a part of the Yankee Stadium experience for years. The Bombers have runners on base, the visiting manager makes the slow walk out to the mound, and signals to the bullpen in left field.
Immediately, the door in the left-field fence opens up, the new reliever steps onto the field, and immediately the Yankee Stadium scoreboard begins to play a rally video, intended to intimidate the new pitcher and pump up the crowd. Over the last few years, the Yankees have experimented quite a bit with the in-game stadium experience, bringing in a DJ to blast music and sound effects between pitches and implementing various closer entrances for Clay Holmes, Luke Weaver, Devin Williams, and David Bednar. Accordingly, the organization has experimented with these rally hype videos.
Last summer, for example, they engaged in some subtle advertising with a Jurassic World-themed vide of Yankees batters stalking pitchers like prey, conveniently introduced a few weeks before Jurassic World Rebirth premiered in theaters. Then, as the old scoreboard gave them fits late last season (in fact, I saw the system crash so often I almost wrote an article last year about it), they shifted to a light-centered video, cutting almost all the lights in the stadium and putting a “Public Service Announcement: Yankees Rally Incoming” emergency alert on all functioning screens. After making a big deal about the new scoreboard installation, it should not be surprising then that the Yankees revamped their rally hype video again.
When a new pitcher came into the game this week, the lights in the Stadium were dimmed, and a QR code was put on the screen. This QR code linked to a light show website, which took over the flashlight of each participating cell phone and incorporated them into a stadium-wide light show. From a technical standpoint, the effect was incredibly cool — thousands upon thousands of lights flashing throughout Yankee Stadium in the night, taking over for the Stadium lights and supplementing the scoreboards and screens as the pitcher reached the mound in preparation for his warmup pitches.