Major League Baseball, as well as other sports, were plagued amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to ESPN, the MLB introduced a mere 60 game season during COVID-19. YouTube broadcasted four of those 60 games on compared to 13 broadcast games out of 162 in 2019.
Despite a shortened season last year of 60 games, the MLB is following through with the regular schedule of 162 regular-season games for all teams and YouTube, for their third consecutive year will get to broadcast a small selection of 21 games this season.
All the selected MLB games on YouTube will be exclusive, which means no other broadcast stations or partners with those selected teams may broadcast the game.
We know baseball is America’s national pastime, but baseball has lost somewhat of its fan base. This was discussed in an article submission written by Darragh Roche, an Irish freelance journalist who writes about politics, society and culture.
With this exclusive deal with YouTube, they have the potential to reach out to the younger generation on a contemporary platform.
On the MLB side, the baseball games’ broadcasted are going to be the standard format as the MLB usually broadcasts their games just like your normally televised MLB game.
On the YouTube side, because it’s going to be virtual, they will be able to implement a live chat which would allow fans and all viewers to take part in commenting, voting on polls and questions, and participating in raffles to win prizes.
This is all in the fan’s interest but what makes it unique is how they’re choosing to interact because it wouldn’t be possible at a live game and everyone gets a say and it’s to express their opinion and voice through this live chat.
This is special because it reaches out to both types of users, including fans from older generations who just enjoy watching the game.
Tim Katz, the head of Sports Partnerships for YouTube in a interview with Forbes said, “We wanted to balance the two and make sure that we have the quality of the production and a broadcast and that were serving both types of fans and both types of users.”