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Sports streaming service DAZN adds baseball with MLB deal
DAZN might have only arrived in the US a couple of months ago, but the sports streaming service is already making strides in expanding its portfolio to cater to all types of sports fans. The latest move is a three-year, live digital rights deal with Major League Baseball.
The best ways to stream live sports
If you're a sports fan, there's nothing quite like kicking back on the couch, cracking open a cold one and watching your favorite team rise triumphant over the other guys. For the longest time, it was thought that the only way to have such an experience was via a TV coupled with a cable or satellite subscription. That's because, for the most part, sports are best enjoyed live, and watching live TV hasn't always been the province of cord cutters. Things have changed in the past few years, however. Not only can you now stream most live sports on your computer or your smartphone, but you don't even need a cable or satellite provider to do so, which can potentially save you plenty of money. Yet the process is less easy than you'd think -- it depends a lot on what sport you're into and which teams you support -- and there are occasionally local blackouts to contend with as well. But with the cord-cutting movement gaining momentum recently, it's now a lot easier to watch live sports online than it's ever been, as long as you know what to look for. For the purposes of this guide, we decided to focus on the five major sports that are most often watched live -- American football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, and domestic and international soccer -- though we also offer information about other sports like tennis and golf where relevant.
MLB is bringing biometric ticketing to select ballparks
Clear announced a new partnership today with Major League Baseball and Tickets.com that will let fans opt for biometric ticketing at certain MLB ballparks. Those who link their Clear accounts to their MLB.com accounts will be able to use their fingerprint instead of a paper or mobile ticket at participating ballparks. Clear plans to pilot this system at a small number of parks later this season and a wider rollout to Tickets.com-enabled ballparks is scheduled for the beginning of 2019. "Our collaboration with Clear is an important new technology initiative, delivering safe, simple and seamless experiences for fans," Noah Garden, MLB's executive vice president of business, said in a statement. "Developing a partnership that will unify emerging identity technology and ticketing is reflective of our commitments to always improving ballpark accessibility and maintaining critical security standards."
Bixby will start collecting sports scores and news next month
Bixby Home is getting smarter. Well, in the sense that now in the US, Samsung's virtual assistant will offer sports scores and up-to-the-minute news coverage through a partnership with theScore. Swiping right on "select" Galaxy device home-screens including the S9 and S9 Plus gives access to the stats and news. To make the feature a little more useful, you can even follow your favorite teams and leagues so only the news that matters to you will show up.
Hardly anyone likes watching baseball on Facebook
On Thursday May 24th, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim will face the Toronto Blue Jays in Rogers Centre for the third time this year. The game will air at 12:37 p.m. ET, so if you're a diehard Angels or Blue Jays fan and you'll be working during that time, you might want to set your DVR to watch it later ... except you can't. That's because it's one of the 25 games that Major League Baseball has selected to air exclusively on Facebook in 2018. This will be the eighth such game aired on Facebook Watch this year, and so far, not a lot of fans are pleased about it.
How off-the-shelf cameras are powering baseball’s next-gen replays
As crowds fill the stands in AT&T Park this year, they'll be focused on the usual ballpark festivities: eating hot dogs, drinking beer and, of course, watching the San Francisco Giants play baseball. But if they were to venture onto the park's club level and look upward, they'd notice something odd hanging from the deck: around 140 Panasonic GH5 cameras pointed at the field. The purpose of these cameras? To capture seamless slow-motion video from multiple angles in near real time.
Sports Illustrated's streaming service adds MLB games and shows
Sports Illustrated TV just became considerably more intreresting if you're a baseball fan... provided you don't need live games, anyway. The streaming service has forged an agreement with MLB that provides access to the league's back catalog of games and shows. In some cases, this will include offering whole games -- an Ace's Choice series will show games chosen by the likes of Nolan Ryan and Pedro Martinez.
MLB's virtual reality home run derby comes to PSVR and HTC Vive
Major League Baseball got into VR with a home run derby simulator that fans tried at the All-Star game and select ballparks last season. Earlier this year, the MLB promised it would bring the experience to consumer virtual reality sets in spring. While it didn't arrive in time for Opening Day, aspiring sluggers can load up the game today and tee off on their own virtual home run derby on PSVR and HTC Vive for $20.
Twitter will stream another season of Major League Baseball
Just because Facebook has forged a deal with Major League Baseball to livestream 25 of its day games exclusively doesn't mean other social networks can't get a piece of the action. MLB games are also coming to Twitter, now that the two have renewed their partnership. Twitter is livestreaming one day game a week for free from April to September 2018, starting with the Texas Rangers versus the Oakland Athletics on April 5th at 3:35 PM ET.
Facebook has exclusive rights to 25 MLB games this season
Facebook will get exclusive rights to stream 25 afternoon MLB games, starting with one on April 4th between the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets. This isn't the first time the platform has aired baseball games -- they started livestreaming some back in May 2017 -- but it will be the first time a US major league has granted a social network sole rights to broadcast games.
YouTube TV will soon include MLB’s streaming service
Baseball fans looking for a way out of cable TV's clutches might finally have their answer: MLB.tv is coming to YouTube TV. MLB and YouTube are expanding the partnership that began in 2017 to include a bunch of sponsorship extras, which largely just means a load more promotional activity before and during games, but the deal also includes bringing the MLB Network to YouTube TV from today, and getting MLB.tv on board in the near future. Launch details are vague -- no timeline has been given -- but we do know that it will involve an additional fee. Currently, MLB.tv costs an eye-watering $90 a year for a single-team or $116 a year/$25 a month for all teams, so if it can rival these prices it could definitely stand a chance of drawing fans away from cable. Still, it may well be the case that both parties are waiting to see how the MLB Network performs before making hard and fast commitments about MLB.tv, but it's a win for YouTube TV's baseball fans regardless.
MLB's 'Home Run Derby VR' is coming to PSVR and Vive this spring
Major League Baseball has gotten into VR lately with a host of initiatives, including partnerships with Google for At Bat VR, Intel for "Game of the Week" live streams and Samsung for immersive highlights of the 2017 season. Now MLB is bringing a VR Home Run Derby that debuted at the All-Star Game and select ballparks to your home via PlayStation VR and HTC Vive.
YouTube TV gets TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network, CNN and a price bump
It's been almost a year since Google first announced YouTube TV, its $35-per-month service for cord cutters. Since then, Google has been iterating to improve on a product that was solid at launch -- but today marks the biggest expansion of YouTube TV thus far. The service now has access to a host of new channels from the Turner network, including TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, CNN, Turner Classic Movies and a few others. For sports fans, YouTube is also adding NBA TV and the MLB Network as well. But there's a bit of bad news that comes along with this: New YouTube TV subscriptions will now cost $40, up from the $35 price that the service has cost since launch. The price increase will hit on March 13th, so new potential customers still have a month to get in the door and lock in the $35 rate; existing subscribers won't see a change to their bill at all.
Recommended Reading: The making of Elton John's VR retirement party
How Elton John's VR retirement announcement hit your headset Emma Grey Ellis, Wired If you haven't heard, music legend Sir Elton John announced his retirement and final tour this week in the most 2018 way possible: VR. Wired goes behind the scenes to get the details on how that montage was made before it beamed out to your headset.
Google’s latest VR series takes you to the set of ‘Austin City Limits’
While Apple continues to expand its library of exclusive music documentaries, Google is now bringing a little music to its slate of VR series. Austin City Limits: Backstage takes you behind the scenes of the legendary music show and gives you backstage access to the performances, the crew and the artists that take the stage.
‘MLB: The Show 18’ arrives on PS4 March 27th
Sony's MLB: The Show franchise has earned a reputation for hitting it out of the park with each annual edition -- and introducing cool new features, like last year's Retro Mode. Now we know when the next one will come out: MLB: The Show 18 launches on March 27th. And who else to grace its cover than the titan of teeing off, the Yankees' Aaron Judge.
Facebook snags a Kerry Washington-produced drama
Facebook continues to add to its slate of original content and the latest show to join the lineup is a Kerry Washington-produced drama called Five Points, Variety reports. The show follows high school students living on the South Side of Chicago and covers the fallout of a life-changing event from five different points of view.
MLB fines coach for wearing an Apple Watch during a game
Officials at the MLB are definitely keen to remind teams that they aren't allowed to use wearable tech during games. The league has fined Arizona Diamondbacks coach Ariel Prieto for wearing his Apple Watch in the dugout during an October 4th game against the Colorado Rockies. The team is facing a collective fine, too. Investigators looking at Prieto's watch and phone were quick to stress that there was "no evidence" of cheating, but the mere presence of the wristwear was enough.
Oakland Athletics reportedly test NFC-powered MLB tickets
It took Apple long enough to embrace NFC, even though it was originally only enabled for Apple Pay. Luckily, the company has finally opened up the short-range wireless technology in iOS 11, which should lead to a host of innovative uses of NFC by third-parties. Case in point, according to TechCrunch, the Oakland Athletics are piloting a new system that will let you tap your iPhone or Apple Watch on ticket scanners to go see a baseball game.
Red Sox reportedly cheated with a Fitbit, not an Apple Watch
Reports that the Boston Red Sox cheated in games with an Apple Watch may have been slightly off the mark. A source speaking to Boston Globe baseball writer Nick Cafardo claims that the team used a Fitbit device, not Apple's smartwatch. It's not certain which model would have been used, but the Blaze seems like a prime candidate given its smartwatch-like design. You don't need a high-priced smartwatch to get text messages, after all.
