Play ball! MLB giving Facebook a swing at live streaming games

More news on the live streaming front, Facebook will play host to a daily spring training game from Major League Baseball and the initiative could, reports say, actually extend into the regular season.

Facebook earlier this month made news when it cut a deal with Warner Bros. to offer its 600-million users the Batman movie Dark Knight. Also, last week, rumors surfaced that Netflix was working with the social networking giant to integrate Netflix into Facebook's platform, increasing user time spent in Facebook and driving incremental Netflix subscribers domestically and in new international markets.

Facebook's deal with Major League Baseball currently is being painted as a free promotion for baseballs successful MLB.com franchise, which is trying to gauge new market potential, but it could point the way to the future.

Live sports has been seen as one of the major advantages tradition broadcasters and pay-TV operators have over online video players like Netflix and Hulu, and has been cited by numerous surveys as a major factor in mitigating cord cutting.

For more:
- see this report

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