Major League Baseball started their official Snapchat account roughly two years ago, before the start of Spring Training 2014. Since then, the MLB has built a greater relationship with the social media platform. This Friday, March 11th, during Spring Training games, Major League Baseball and Snapchat will offer live in game content from players from all 30 teams.
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For the first time ever MLB will allow players to post videos and pictures from the dugout and bullpen during a game. Spring Training stadiums in both Arizona and Florida are often a fun family atmosphere, and the outcome of the games has no real impact on the regular season ahead. This makes it the perfect time to offer this unique content, while testing its viability for the future.
Major League Baseball will post all of the Snapchats from players on the 30 different team accounts as well as aggregating many on the official MLB Snapchat. Players will also use SnapBats; standard wooden baseball bats that have been converted into selfie-sticks. This technology debuted at the 2015 MLB All-Start Weekend.
Along with posting videos and pictures on team accounts and the MLB account there will be a Live Story running all day this Friday, that Snapchat will curate. This feature has become a mainstay in many pro sports, as we have covered here in the past. Major League Baseball and Snapchat partnered during the 2015 season to produce weekly “Our Stories.”.
The MLB “Our Stories” is fan generated content that is then filtered and pieced together by Snapchat. They were posted once a week on Wednesday or Thursday; this content will continue for the 2016 season. MLB also adds behind the scenes coverage that is posted by league and team social media correspondents to help enhance the fan experience.
Major League Baseball is making a push to generate content for younger fans, and Snapchat’s user base is very young. As we covered here recently MLB has the most downloaded and used sports app, At Bat. They are trying to reach younger fans on mobile devices through as many channels as possible.
MLB television ratings are extremely high. Ten MLB teams are the highest-rated and most viewed prime time programs during the summer in their respective markets and almost every major league team is in the top five in that same category. The problem however for MLB is that their fans are skewing older than ever before. They have, on average, the oldest fans in the United States at roughly 54-years-old; only the Professional Golf Association has older fans.
Major League Baseball is trying to do all they can to engage younger fans, and this means reaching them where they are the most prevalent on social media. Their continued partnership with Snapchat and promotions such as the live in-game player produced content this Friday, is a step in the right direction.