Hunt and Peck

Baseball games will be broadcast on Facebook, which literally no one asked for - A Hunt and Peck

Baseball continues its time-honored tradition of giving the fans things they never wanted in the first place.

By lil_scooter93 Mar 13, 2018, 1:00pm EDT

According to Ronald Blum of the Associated Press by way of the STLToday.com, Major League Baseball intends to air twenty-five games exclusively on Facebook. Per Blum:

The games will be available to Facebook users in the U.S. on Facebook Watch, the company’s video feature announced last August, via the MLB Live show page.

Whatever that even means... because she likes you all, this author shall try her very best to unpack this.

Veiwers will not be able to watch the game featured on Facebook via the regional channel, in this case Fox Sports Midwest.
MLB.tv users will still be able to watch the game using the service.
The Cardinals game to be featured on Facebook will be the day game against the Brewers on April 11.
In order to watch the game from Facebook, viewers will need a Facebook account and must log in to that account on a mobile device. Then, viewers go to this thing:

The game should be somewhere on that page. Honestly, I would have no idea this page even existed if I didn’t accidentally click on it approximately three times a day.

fans: we would like a more consistent strike zone and faster replay reviews
MLB: shortened games
fans: no
MLB: we’re gonna put a runner on second to start the 9th and let the losing team bat whoever they want
fans: that’s not-
MLB: WE PUT GAMES ON FACEBOOK
fans:
— jenna (@jennaashlyn) March 10, 2018

While the idea is interesting, the exclusivity is a major drawback. It is essentially making something that was once a very simple process a real pain in the butt. Also, as Liz Roscher of SB Nation points out, the average age of a U.S. Facebook user is over forty years old. If this is MLB’s attempt to draw in younger users, the league is more out of touch than we thought. This is the first thing that came to mind after the news broke:

I am going to be honest and say I will absolutely not be using this. I’d rather just listen to the radio. That being said, for baseball’s sake, I hope it is successful and the only way to know for sure is to try.

Cardinals game in April to be broadcast exclusively on Facebook | St. Louis Cardinals | stltoday.com

MLB will broadcast games exclusively on Facebook, for some reason | SBNation.com