Less than three weeks after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg hinted that live sports content wasn’t part of Facebook’s future, Facebook has reached a deal to stream MLB games live part of its present.
Facebook MLB streaming is coming blackout free to the social media channel, and while the number of games isn’t remarkable what’s curious is the announcement of this deal coming so soon after Zuckerberg seemingly made comments to the contrary.
Back on May 4, Zuckerberg essentially stated that paying out huge sums of money for the exclusive rights to stream live sports content wasn’t part of the plans for Facebook’s future.
Then on Thursday, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that Facebook and MLB had reached a deal to put 20 Friday night games this season on Facebook Live and that more games could be added in future seasons. The price Facebook paid for the right to stream the games hasn’t been released. While this seems like a contradiction with Zuckerberg’s comments, the details of the deal are important.
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What’s important to note in this deal is that Facebook’s streaming of these games isn’t exclusive, but rather auxiliary. These games, which begin with this Friday’s Cincinnati Reds vs. Colorado Rockies tilt, will still be shown on local television in both markets along with streaming on MLB.TV and the broadcast rights holders’ streaming platforms. That lack of exclusivity most likely makes the price Facebook paid significantly less than the $20 million Verizon paid for exclusive rights to stream one NFL game, for example.
There’s also a huge savings for Facebook in the fact that Facebook isn’t producing this content, like Twitter has plans to do with its live sports content, but rather just providing another way for fans to consume it.
It’s not clear how much advertising space Facebook has the room to sell during the games, but fans should expect the same number and duration of commercials during the Facebook streams of these games as they would get watching the games on any other platform.
While this deal may push the boundaries of Zuckerberg’s comments about Facebook’s future, it still allows Facebook to get some live sports content without breaking the bank, which was the real crux of what Zuckerberg said. Zuckerberg said that when it comes to live sports, Facebook would be a content aggregator, not a generator. This deal doesn’t violate that principle.