Sports streaming scored with the deal between MLB and YouTube to stream the ‘Game of The Week’ on Thursday’s to viewers free of charge with no required sign-in. YouTubeTV will also broadcast these baseball games to subscribers. The exclusive 2019 season arrangement is a step in the direction of livestreaming as fans across the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico can watch the LA Dodgers at the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Ballpark in a live broadcasting event right now. The Sports Techie community blog has been watching two business trends, cutting cable while at the same time, delivery of sport events over the internet. This deal is a first for YouTube for exclusive delivery of live games. MLB Network will produce the games for YouTube’s platforms.
MLB on YouTube and Beyond
Whether it is the YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/MLB, YouTubeTV or a soon to be launched channel on YouTube dedicated to this partnership, each professional baseball fan has to feel pretty good about this opportunity that literally costs nothing other than the web access together with the computer, digital devices and smart TV you already use to watch video over the web.
“It’s incredible to team up with Major League Baseball for this first-of-its-kind deal together to provide both diehard baseball fans and our YouTube community with live games exclusively on YouTube and YouTube TV,” said Timothy Katz, YouTube’s head of sports and news partnerships. “With Major League Baseball’s expanding international fanbase, we are confident YouTube’s global audience will bring fans around the world together in one place to watch the games and teams they love.”
I used a YouTubeTV free 30-day trial several years ago to check out the service and felt like it was a winner, especially regarding sporting events. The cost back then was $35 and today it costs $50 per month to subscribe. YouTube is owned by Google and is taking over where Facebook and their 25-game package last season, and Twitter before that, left out in terms of assisting MLB with growing the game through online streaming. For the past three seasons, YouTubeTV was the presenting sponsor for the World Series. Since last year, MLB Network is now showing on YouTubeTV.
In terms of additional International coverage, other than 23 territories that already have existing rights, you are good to go. Affecting countries according to MLB, include Japan, Germany, Australia and New Zealand.
TV is not part of this arrangement nor will the games be on the MLB.tv subscription streaming service during the the rest of the dogdays of summer. Football starts next week so this platform will probably be up against some fierce competition for eyeballs from TNF and College Football on Thursday nights should they go head-to-head.
A pre-game and post-game show is also part of the broadcast, mixed in with original MLB and YouTube content.
Today’s afternoon matinee is already underway with more than 201,000 viewers in the seventh inning. YouTube has an invite only chat going on with YouTube creators and channels that representing the Dodgers, Phillies and MLB. The full list is available on the YouTube channel. The dates for the rest of the 12 game of the weeks and the participating teams will be announced shortly.
Sports Techie, if you look over all the videos on the MLB channel it has 1,819,571 subscribers and as a result, you can see significant viewer traction and metrics. The Dodgers rally in the 9th inning to defeat the Boston Red Sox video three days ago had 272,000 views.
MLB is facing reality that viewership in America is probably not going to grow all that much in the near future. Add in the MLB international audience and significant growth numbers are definitely there.
The real winners are fans who love the game because the price is right and distribution is simple. Sponsors should be happy about this too.
Let’s play a digital two on YouTube!
See you later sportstechie in Seattle, Atlanta and around the world!
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