On Monday, the first day of baseball’s 2013 season, Major League Baseball knocked it out of the park when it comes to mobile.
MLB’s At Bat app was accessed an astounding 6 million times yesterday, more than double the app’s audience just one year ago on opening day.
At Bat and MLB.TV also combined to deliver three million live streams, a mark 20 percent higher than the Opening Day record set in 2012.
“Baseball’s mobile app audience is interesting because it’s not like the TV watching audience — MLB apps are not just used by fans who aren’t at a game,” explains Erica Ogg of Gigaom.
“MLB has deftly built its online and mobile viewing audience by understanding that and embracing the ubiquity of mobile devices,” she adds. “MLB Advanced Media CEO Bob Bowman — who will be speaking at paidContent Live 2013 this month in New York City — told me recently that for younger fans, the smartphone ‘is the first screen, not second screen’ and that any app the league makes ‘has to have everything’ if they want to engage and keep those fans around for years.”
What role does mobile play in your enjoyment of baseball and other professional sports?
