MLB Rumors 2016: Games to Be Officially Streamed Live in China
Baseball is huge in many countries, but majority of baseball-crazy nations are actually concentrated in the American continent, with the exception of Japan. However, there's one country that is slowly embracing the sport — China.
In response to the growing popularity of baseball in the Chinese sporting industry, the MLB took steps to respond to it, agreeing with Le Sports to bring live streaming of its games to the world's most populous country. The deal, which was announced on Wednesday, is reportedly signed for three years.
Le Sports will start showing 125 games per year, comprising 96 regular season games and 20 games for the postseason. The rights given to them by the MLB also include live coverage of the All-Star Game, All-Star Home Run Derby, and the World Series. The programming that Le Sports is planning to release will be in Mandarin. Finally, the agreement stipulated that Le Sports can also re-broadcast through video on demand on certain games.
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Furthermore, the coverage will include mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. It will be the very first time that the league makes a deal for the mass market in China. Le Sports, for its part, is a huge eco-sports company in the country.
The broadcast and eco-sports company will be distributing the games, as well as other kinds of MLB content using the already built and established Internet platform, as well as its mobile applications in different devices and gadgets. As for the live streaming plan, there will be four high-definition games every week for the regular season. But perhaps the most important component of the deal, business-wise, is the fact that they also get the right to sell MLB products.
Aside from the new deal, the company will retain its role as co-producer of MLB Perfect Pitch and broadcaster of the MLB Beijing University Baseball League and MLB Shanghai University Baseball League.
