Report: Facebook plans to get you hooked on its TV app with MLB live-streams

By Saqib Shah February 21, 2017

yahoo sports app update mlb major league baseball safe — Keith Allison/Flickr

Facebook is reportedly in talks with Major League Baseball (MLB) to license live games from the upcoming season for its recently announced video app. A successful deal would provide a high-profile boost for the offering, which will see the social platform make the move to Samsung Smart TVs, and set-top boxes such as Apple TV, and Amazon Fire TV.

Facebook and MLB are in the advanced stages of talks that could result in the social network landing the rights to broadcast one live game per week, according to sources who spoke to Reuters.

Recommended Videos

The move mirrors rival Twitter’s live video strategy through its emphasis on sports broadcasts. Sports events made up 52 percent of the 600 hours of video content streamed on Twitter between September and December, and included major partners like the NFL and NBA.

The big draw for sports leagues and media broadcasters is the size of Facebook’s user base, which is predicted to reach 2 billion members this year (231 million of whom are based in the United States and Canada). Seeing as the live-streams will be accessible across the range of devices Facebook is available on (desktop, mobile, and soon TV), the deal would ensure maximum exposure to that massive potential audience.

Another likely draw is advertising. Facebook currently offers comprehensive ad-targeting capabilities and has already started making ads for set-top boxes. Despite the company claiming in its recent earnings call that its video strategy would be funded through ad-sharing revenue, it also emphasized it hasn’t given up on content licensing deals. In the past, Facebook has paid out roughly $50 million to celebs and publishers to get them to create content for its Live Video feature.

Both Twitter and Facebook are also trying to appeal to global audiences with exclusive region-locked content. Twitter for example has live-streamed Six Nations Rugby in France, and Facebook broadcasted an NBA game in India. In order to compete with its bigger rival, Twitter (home to 319 million users) also allows logged-out users to tune into its live-streams.

Facebook’s most recent win came in the form of its deal with Univision to broadcast 46 Mexican Liga MX soccer games in the U.S. The first of those matches was live-streamed on the social network on Saturday. In his announcement, Facebook’s head of global sports partnerships Dan Reed revealed that the company had targeted sports content as a growth area.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Saqib Shah is a Twitter addict and film fan with an obsessive interest in pop culture trends. In his spare time he can be…

Social Media

I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.

Computing

Here’s how to delete your YouTube account on any device

How to delete your YouTube account

Wanting to get out of the YouTube business? If you want to delete your YouTube account, all you need to do is go to your YouTube Studio page, go to the Advanced Settings, and follow the section that will guide you to permanently delete your account. If you need help with these steps, or want to do so on a platform that isn't your computer, you can follow the steps below.

Note that the following steps will delete your YouTube channel, not your associated Google account.

Mobile

How to download Instagram photos for free

Instagram app running on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5.

Instagram is amazing, and many of us use it as a record of our lives — uploading the best bits of our trips, adventures, and notable moments. But sometimes you can lose the original files of those moments, leaving the Instagram copy as the only available one . While you may be happy to leave it up there, it's a lot more convenient to have another version of it downloaded onto your phone or computer. While downloading directly from Instagram can be tricky, there are ways around it. Here are a few easy ways to download Instagram photos.