Major League Advanced Media is working on a “Catch Up” feature to help fans joining a broadcast in progress to quickly review the action they missed.
If, say, an MLB.TV subscriber logs into the livestream of a game in the fourth inning, the app can play a reel of the key moments from the first three innings.
“Even though you’re an hour late, you feel like you got the highlights, you’re up to speed with where we are,” MLB’s executive vice president for strategy, technology and innovation, Chris Marinak, said on the SportTechie Podcast. “Then you can continue to watch and follow the game from there.”
Catch Up will launch first for Apple TV and supported devices but will move to other platforms in time. The highlight selection is automated, with an algorithm powering a “captivating index” value that ranks plays by their impact on Win Probability.
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Marinak also described a series of “incremental improvements” to the At Bat app, including an improved video player, better navigation and improved voice recognition in addition to Catch Up for MLB.TV.
“It’s things like that, where it’s making the experience cleaner, being able to get fans the information they need at their fingertips much more readily and allow them to join the action in progress and continue to follow it from there,” he said.