Twitter, MLB Renew Live Streaming Deal

If you are a baseball fan, you will have more options than ever to stream games this season.

On Tuesday Twitter and Major League Baseball announced that they had renewed their live streaming deal, which will see one game a week air on the social network, free for all users.

The two dozen or so games will be national simulcasts of a local team’s TV broadcast, and will not be available in the market of the teams playing.

Twitter will offer advertisers placement in the same commercial pods that would air on TV.

Last year Twitter and MLB teamed up to stream Friday night games on the service. This year, the companies opted to focus on weekday afternoon games instead. The first matchup will air this Thursday, with the Texas Rangers facing the Oakland Athletics.

While Fox, ESPN and TBS all have national MLB rights (and typically get the best games), the league has been aggressive in getting its games placed on streaming platforms.

In addition to Twitter, Facebook inked a deal last month to air 25 day games this season. The streaming service ESPN+, which launches later this month, will have more than 180 games throughout the season, none of which will overlap with the games that air on the ESPN linear channels.

MLB also offers its own direct-to-consumer offering, MLB.tv, that streams every out of market game. The league says that this year’s Opening Day coverage in the app saw viewership rise 32% from last year’s Opening Day.

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