Yankees add TikTok as sponsor despite Trump’s ban threat

The New York Yankees announced Wednesday that TikTok would join its list of sponsors, despite President Trump’s latest threats to ban the social media giant from doing business in the U.S.

Sportico reported that the Yankees and YES Network, the team’s sports channel, have inked a deal that will last until September and provide the Yankees with $10 million and branded content on the TikTok app.

The deal will reportedly expire if the Trump administration moves forward with plans to ban transactions with TikTok’s parent company, the Chinese firm ByteDance, next month. 

The team did not immediately return a request for comment from Sportico.

The Trump administration moved last week to give ByteDance 45 days to divest from TikTok or be banned from operating in the U.S. Trump initially announced plans to ban TikTok in early August and set a mid-September deadline for the company to be purchased by a U.S firm for it to continue operation.

TikTok executives slammed Trump’s executive order, accusing his administration of ignoring facts and inserting itself into private negotiations following the president’s announcement last week.

“For nearly a year, we have sought to engage with the US government in good faith to provide a constructive solution to the concerns that have been expressed,” the company said in a statement. “What we encountered instead was that the Administration paid no attention to facts, dictated terms of an agreement without going through standard legal processes, and tried to insert itself into negotiations between private businesses.”