Major League Baseball sold the exclusive rights to just over two dozen ball games this season to the social media giant Facebook for $35 million dollars. Facebook will air 25 weekday afternoon games in 2018 and it will, unfortunately, include two upcoming Toronto Blue Jays contests.
The two affected Blue Jays games will be on April 18th versus the Kansas City Royals and May 24th against the Los Angeles Angels. Both contests are home games in Toronto so if you are looking for an excuse to venture to the Rogers Centre for an afternoon contest, these would be the dates to go to a game otherwise you will be streaming from your computer.
The Jays game could receive negative reviews if by chance Shohei Ohtani ends up pitching on May 24th and there is no television coverage of the game other than a live Facebook stream.
For those asking, the #BlueJays games scheduled to be on Facebook exclusively are April 18 vs. #Royals and May 24 vs. #Angels. More dates could be added by #MLB
— Hazel Mae (@thehazelmae) April 5, 2018
To clarify, #MLB has sold exclusive broadcast rights to a number of weekday afternoon games to Facebook. The April 18 and May 24 games are now no longer available to Sportsnet to broadcast. You can still follow the #BlueJays along the #Sportsnet Radio Network.
— Hazel Mae (@thehazelmae) April 5, 2018
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The first streamed game was two days earlier on April 04th versus the Philadelphia Phillies and the New York Mets. If you happened to be perusing Twitter that day, the game came under much fire from upset fans who chastised both the MLB and Facebook for their newest money-making venture.
The always opinionated Keith Olbermann also chimed in on Phillies/Mets stream and he expressed much of the same sentiment.
The @facebook telecast Mets-Phillies game is LOL-bad. Epically amateurish and tedious. If you want to put it online and cover it with gigantic pointless graphics and inane commentary, have fun. But don’t make it exclusive. The world is fleeing Facebook; MLB is embracing it?
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) April 4, 2018
Tony Petitti, Deputy Commissioner of Business and Media for Major League Baseball defended the partnership in a recent statement. I am fairly confident there were 35 million reasons for the MLB defend the agreement.
"“This partnership with Facebook reflects the ongoing commitment of Major League Baseball and our Clubs to connect with people around the world. It is a major creative step forward in serving our diverse, passionate community of fans, who will enjoy a uniquely interactive experience watching our games on Facebook each week.”"
Next: Blue Jays: Kyle Drabek and the Cy Young connection
Regardless if you like it or not, it is here to stay for the 2018 campaign so charge up those computers and enjoy some online baseball between the Jays and Royals in a couple weeks.