Social Media Companies Racing to Secure Rights to Live Stream Sporting Events; Facebook Negotiating with MLB

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Facebook has reached out to the Major League Baseball (MLB) to negotiate a deal that would allow the social media company to live stream one MLB game per week for the upcoming season. Meanwhile, Twitter is also pushing major sports leagues for a deal to broadcast their sporting events live.

According to The Verge, Facebook, the social media giant founded by Mark Zuckerberg, is aiming to sign deals with owners of sports rights to live stream games. Interestingly, Facebook is after the audience that other social media companies, such as Twitter, are also trying to win over.

To attract people, social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter need to live stream major sports competition since sporting events are one of the few types of content that people watch live. According to Lee Berke, a sports media consultant, social media companies are going after sports programming and it "makes perfect sense" that Facebook is "going after name brand properties like the MLB."

Variety reports that Twitter has signed a deal with MLB for rights to live stream one baseball game per week for the 2017 season. The deal will bring the baseball game exclusively for free among over-the-top distributors. Unlike Facebook, Twitter has also secured the rights to live stream National Football League (NFL) games.

According to a person close to the negotiation, Facebook and MLB are currently in advance talks. If the deal does push through, a consultant said that the MLB would get access to the young audience at a massive scale.

Facebook already has a deal in place with Univision Communications Inc. to live stream Mexican soccer games in English. According to Tonia O'Connor, chief commercial officer and president of content distribution at Univision, their company chose Facebook Live to stream the games due to Facebook's wide reach.

The deal with Facebook and Univision Communications Inc. allows the social media company to live stream 46 soccer games of Liga MX in 2017. Facebook has live streamed other sporting events, such as basketball, other soccer matches, and table tennis.

Meanwhile, Amazon, like the social media companies, has also been angling to obtain rights to live sporting events. If granted the rights, Amazon could be adding more value to their Prime Video.