Facebook strikes Major League Baseball partnership

Facebook has struck a deal with Major League Baseball to stream live coverage of 25 weekday afternoon games.

Under the exclusive agreement, the games will be available to Facebook users in the US through Facebook Watch, a video feature that was launched by the social media platform last August, via the MLB Live page.

Franchises will be blocked from showing those games on their regional sports channels, with the selected contests being those that teams can lose from their local broadcast platform to national partners.

Recorded coverage will also be made available on a global basis, excluding specific markets.

According to various reports, the deal, which was approved by all 30 MLB teams, is worth between $30m (€24m) and $35m.

The games will take place primarily on Wednesdays and the first contest covered by the deal will be the New York Mets v Philadelphia Phillies on April 4.

The coverage will be produced by MLB Network, but Facebook will be allowed to integrate social graphics and will also be able to distributed tailored content in addition to each live game, including on-demand highlights.