Facebook In Talks With MLB To Live Stream One Baseball Game Per Week
Facebook sure has grown up over the years. What started as a "Hot or Not" clone for Harvard students has morphed into the world's biggest social media platform. To Mark Zuckerberg's credit, he's used the power of Facebook in a variety of useful ways, everything from advancing technology to bringing Internet access to remote parts of the world. So what comes next? Perhaps baseball.
What does Facebook have to do with baseball? At the moment, not much. However, the site is in talks with Major League Baseball (MLB) to live stream games at a clip of one per week during the upcoming season. If Facebook can pull that off, it would be a big win for the social network, as both it and Twitter have tried to ink deals with sports rights holders to live stream games.
"Facebook is aggressively going after sports content and they are now one of a number of competitors to traditional media outlets that are going after sports programming," sports media consultant Lee Berke told Reuters. "It makes perfect sense that they would be going after name brand properties like the MLB."
The social network is apparently in advanced talks, meaning it is well beyond the initial exploratory phase. That does not mean a deal is imminent, though it's no longer about spit balling an idea at this point. Now it is a matter of hammering out the details.
It is not clear which games Facebook would stream or what the schedule would be like. Had Facebook been able to pull this off a year ago, it could have followed the story line of David Ortiz's farewell tour. Ortiz, otherwise affectionately known as "Big Papi," was an integral part of the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004, 2007, and 2013. He holds the Red Sox single-season record for home runs with 54 and will undoubtedly be a first ballot Hall of Famer.
Whether Facebook chooses to follow a story line of some sort remains to be seen. Regardless, live streaming baseball games could open Facebook up to an even wider audience than it already has, not just in the United States and Canada but all around the world.
What does Facebook have to do with baseball? At the moment, not much. However, the site is in talks with Major League Baseball (MLB) to live stream games at a clip of one per week during the upcoming season. If Facebook can pull that off, it would be a big win for the social network, as both it and Twitter have tried to ink deals with sports rights holders to live stream games.
"Facebook is aggressively going after sports content and they are now one of a number of competitors to traditional media outlets that are going after sports programming," sports media consultant Lee Berke told Reuters. "It makes perfect sense that they would be going after name brand properties like the MLB."
The social network is apparently in advanced talks, meaning it is well beyond the initial exploratory phase. That does not mean a deal is imminent, though it's no longer about spit balling an idea at this point. Now it is a matter of hammering out the details.
It is not clear which games Facebook would stream or what the schedule would be like. Had Facebook been able to pull this off a year ago, it could have followed the story line of David Ortiz's farewell tour. Ortiz, otherwise affectionately known as "Big Papi," was an integral part of the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004, 2007, and 2013. He holds the Red Sox single-season record for home runs with 54 and will undoubtedly be a first ballot Hall of Famer.
Whether Facebook chooses to follow a story line of some sort remains to be seen. Regardless, live streaming baseball games could open Facebook up to an even wider audience than it already has, not just in the United States and Canada but all around the world.
