Yesterday, Yahoo introduced a new feature to Yahoo Sports, the MLB Free Game of the Day. As the name implies, the site will be streaming one Major League Baseball game per day, and it kicked off yesterday with a game between the San Francisco Giants and the Milwaukee Brewers.
The free streams will continue right up until the postseason begins, for a total of 180 games. The streams do feature commercial breaks, but it’s still not a bad trade-off for all that free baseball coverage. Unfortunately, as is generally the case with MLB broadcasts, games are blacked out in local markets.
While other aspects of Yahoo’s business are finding trouble staying relevant, Yahoo Sports seems to be one part of the company that continues to thrive. In addition to the MLB Free Game of the Day, the site also offers baseball fans a fantasy league, columns, and news via its Big League Stew blog.
The company was also behind a major milestone in the live streaming of sports, as it offered the first live-streamed NFL game last year, a contest between the Buffalo Bills and the Jacksonville Jaguars. More than 15 million people around the world viewed the stream, which was delivered to over 33 million devices.
Though this may seem to be too little too late, the importance of Yahoo nabbing the MLB deal shouldn’t be discounted. Streaming rights are quickly becoming important to major tech companies, as well as to sports leagues that would rather not have to rely on pay-TV live streaming services. Earlier this year, rumors were rampant that companies from Amazon to Facebook to Verizon were vying for the streaming rights to Thursday Night Football.
For more information on Yahoo’s free streams, including a schedule of this month’s games, see the blog post on Big League Stew.
