Film, Film, Film for the Home Team

Three cameras rested on tripods and black cords snaked in knots across the floor as Dansby Swanson, a star shortstop for the Chicago Cubs, signed off on his nearly hourlong podcast and stood up to thank his guest. They had busy schedules ahead, but not in the form of batting practice or weight training.

“What do you have going the rest of the day?” Swanson asked. “Whatever they tell me to do,” his interview subject, the Athletics outfielder Brent Rooker, said with a laugh.

As the men departed the makeshift, bare-bones recording studio inside a sleek, sprawling mansion atop a hill in Phoenix, they encountered a hive of activity. Near the infinity pool, an area for photo shoots had been set up, overlooking red boulders. In the manicured backyard, professional athletes tried out table tennis trick shots under the aim of a cellphone camera. And in a secluded room, an interviewer asked players about their favorite music and other light topics.

Chicago Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson, one of the few Major League Baseball players with a podcast, recorded episodes in Phoenix.Credit…Cassidy Araiza for The New York Times

Major League Baseball had cultivated crossover stars like Ken Griffey Jr. and Derek Jeter in the 1990s and 2000s but has fallen behind the N.B.A. and N.F.L., whose athletes are now the ones starring in the biggest commercials, flaunting their fashion sense before games (and at the Met Gala) and entertaining millions of listeners with gossip and locker-room stories on podcasts.

So, during the past three spring trainings, Major League Baseball has transformed a luxury home in the desert into a playground of content creation. It is an attempt, in part, to teach baseball players skills that can help them stand out on social media and in broader pop culture.