Major League Baseball’s Live-Stream Deal With Facebook A Winner, Gary Nerlinger Says

As Facebook’s promotion of its live video broadcasting capabilities continues, the social media giant has teamed up with Major League Baseball (MLB) to broadcast a number of regular season games, according to a May 2017 Business Insider report. There will be 20 games streamed live that users of the social media resource will be able to view via a live stream. According to Gary Nerlinger, a respected leader in the media industry, this partnership is a great way for the MLB to increase its presence and allows Facebook to put its technology toward a worth-while resource.

According to the Business Insider report, this partnership provides a great opportunity to get more eyeballs on sports games. Given the recent trend of cable television customers cutting the proverbial cord with their service provider -- not to mention recent layoffs at ESPN and lackluster viewership of the NFL’s 2016-17 season -- turning to social media could be just what nation sports franchises need.

“Social media use has exploded while time spent in front of the traditional television is on the decline,” said Gary Nerlinger, an expert on live-streaming high-definition entertainment media. “With this in mind, it’s crucial for sports teams – which are still immensely profitable organizations – to find new ways of reaching viewers and maybe filling more seats in the stadiums.”

The MLB-Facebook partnership, while novel, isn’t exactly new. Business Insider adds that the MLB live-streamed some 2011 spring training games on its Facebook page. Naturally, a regular season competition will have much more pull than spring training, Gary Nerlinger notes. Per the Business Insider report, Amazon paid $50 million for the rights to show the National Football League’s 2017-2018 Thursday Night Football games. That figure is a five-fold increase over what Twitter -- which already has the rights to stream National Hockey League games -- paid in 2016 for the same NFL games, according to the report.

“More and more, it’s looking like live-streaming is going to become the premier means of connecting with audiences,” said Gary Nerlinger. “Whether it’s users of the social media platform showing off what they’re up to or entities like MLB opting to find a new medium, the pitfalls appear to be few indeed.”