Facebook will be exclusively streaming 25 Major League Baseball games during the 2018 season, the company and MLB announced Friday morning.
The weekly broadcasts will be shown exclusively on Facebook Watch in the U.S. via the MLB Live show page. The partnership marks the league's first digital-only national broadcasts.
The weekday afternoon games that are part of the deal will be produced by MLB Network and feature "new in-game production elements specially designed for intuitively watching sharing and interacting on Facebook," according to MLB.com.
The first game in the Facebook Watch partnership will be a April 4th 1:10 p.m. (ET) matchup between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets.
April's Facebook Watch schedule:
- Wednesday, April 4: Philadelphia Phillies vs. New York Mets, 1:10 p.m.
- Wednesday, April 11: Milwaukee Brewers vs. St. Louis Cardinals, 1:15 p.m.
- Wednesday, April 18: Kansas City Royals vs. Toronto Blue Jays, 4:07 p.m.
- Thursday, April 26: Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Philadelphia Phillies, 1:05 p.m.
Last season Facebook live streamed 20 MLB games, but it was part of a national simulcast of a team's local television broadcast.
