According to foreign media reports, Facebook has reached an agreement with the Major League Baseball to exclusively broadcast 25 afternoon major league games on its platform.
This is the first time that Major League Baseball has agreed to exclusively play regular games on Facebook. Facebook has been building live broadcast services for sports events. Major League said that alliance managers unanimously agreed to the cooperation with Facebook. Neither the Major League nor Facebook disclosed the financial terms of the partnership agreement, but the transaction price ranged from $30 million to $35 million, according to people familiar with the matter. "Just like when sports games moved from radio to cable, now with financial and audience support, live streaming online will be another leap forward. This is part of the next big leap," said Lee Berke, an industry consultant at
. The collaboration adds Facebook's growing sports content. Last year, the company reached a deal with Fox Sports to broadcast the Champions League match and also reached a deal with Univision to broadcast the matches of Mexico's top football leagues live. The company also broadcasted 20 games from the major leagues last season, but it was not exclusively live. Facebook also received exclusive broadcast rights for 47 college basketball games this year.
Facebook is the world's largest social network with 1.4 billion daily active users. Facebook is growing compared to traditional TV networks that keep losing viewers and advertising contracts. Facebook's total advertising revenue reached $40 billion last year.
All competitions will be held on weekday afternoons, mainly Wednesday. The partnership begins on April 4th between Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets , which can be watched on smartphones, tablets, computers and other connected devices.
These games will be produced by the major league network, which means they will give a broadcast-like look. However, for Facebook, this right allows it to test something on the broadcast, such as social integration and graphical experiments, increasing its appeal to young audiences.
Facebook will also have the right to broadcast these games worldwide, but they do not have exclusive broadcast rights outside the Major League. Facebook will update its schedule monthly.
In addition to broadcasting the content of each game, the Major League will also produce and publish some specially planned content, including on-demand every game, as well as a weekly selected episode for all Major League teams. These content will also appear on Facebook Watches in the United States and around the world.
Rugby Games broadcast rights
Earlier this year, Facebook rejected the broadcast rights for the US professional basketball game Thursday night, and the broadcast rights for last season were obtained by Amazon . Amazon obtained the broadcast rights to the show two years ago. Facebook participated in the bidding two years ago. The company did get broadcast rights to NFL games, providing the major leagues with an opportunity to gain followers on social media services.
Facebook offered a price of US$600 million for the broadcast rights of the Indian Cricket League, but lost to Fox. Facebook has been increasing its content budget that includes live sports competitions and original shows.
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