Major League Baseball is working to create a new experience by letting fans watch one spring training game live each day on its Facebook page. Yesterday’s match-up was the St. Louis Cardinals vs. Boston Red Sox.
This is a huge deal and I have to believe other leagues such as the NBA, NFL, and NHL are watching closely. Why? Because the MLB’s experiment will provide the answer to this question: when given a choice do fans prefer to watch live sports online on a social platform (Facebook) over of a non-social platform (MLB.tv)? I believe the answer will be yes for the following reasons:
Accessible
MLB on Facebook makes watching baseball easy. Facebook is everywhere and everyone is on Facebook. Period. It is one of the first things people check in the morning and one of the last things people check before going to bed. If someone has something to share then Facebook is the way to do it. Facebook delivers a consistant, quality, and free experience. No questions asked – it just works. This is increasingly valuable in a day and age where people are too busy to waste time.
Social
Professional sports is social in nature. At last month’s MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Mav’s owner Mark Cuban commented that fans go to games because nothing really beats experiencing a live sporting environment. No techology will ever be able to replace the feeling of 45,000 fans screaming, high-fiving, while watching a live game. But what if you cannot go to a live game? You go to a bar right? Not the same as live but still a fun and social experience. But what if you cannot go to the bar? You watch from home. No social experience. Having MLB on Facebook changes that. Choosing to watch a game on a social platform would allow my friends and I to instantly participate in the live experience. This is going to create a brand new experience for fans that they will demand more of.
Live
Something exciting going on within a live game can be easily communicated and spread like wild fire through Facebook. Currently, that cannot be done using MLB.TV or regular cable/sat TV. Again, this will be a brand new experience for the fan.
Other things I would recommend MLB test during the Facebook experiment:
- Mini-group viewing. Currently, MLB only offers access to the live game from within its fan page which means that if you want to start/add to a conversation then you have to do so by commenting for everyone to see. What would the interest be in having the ability to watch a live game while chatting with friends only? Or the ability to watch/converse with fans of my team only?
- Full-screen access. Currently, MLB offers only a small embedded viewing option within Facebook. Clicking on the video redirects you to MLB.tv. Would fans be interested in viewing a game in full-screen mode from within Facebook?
- Ability to use the “like” button throughout a live game. It would be pretty awesome, for example, to click on “like” after seeing a great live play and have that clip posted on my Facebook wall for on-demand.