MLB's 2015 World Series between the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets. (Photo : Getty Images)
Major League Baseball, one of the world's most popular professional sports leagues, recently signed a three-year contract with Chinese internet eco-sports company Le Sports to offer live streaming games in China in an effort to develop a growing baseball fan base in the Asian country.
The amount of the deal was undisclosed, but it was reportedly backed by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, who is the founder and executive chairman of Alibaba Group, an e-commerce company based in China.
Commissioner of Baseball Rob Manfred announced the agreement, together with other high-ranking MLB and Le Sports officials such as MLB COO Tony Petitti, MLB Senior Vice President of Growth, Strategy and International Chris Park, Le Sports Chairman Fei Gao, Le Sports CEO Zhenjian Lei, and Le Sports Vice President of Strategy Hang Yu.
USA Today reported that "the deal marks the first mass market MLB media agreement in China" and that Le Sports "will hold exclusive media rights in China to broadcast 125 MLB games per season, along with Mandarin-language MLB programming".
The company is set to deliver MLB games and other related content, such as four HD matches every week during the regular season, 20 HD playoff games, the All-Star Game, Home Run Derby, and all World Series matches thru its internet platform and also via current mobile applications and OTT devices.
MLB's China fan base is currently not that big and thus the development is expected to help distribute the game to the wider Chinese audience.
Bloomberg indicated that "the General Administration of Sport of China last month proposed a 10-year plan to develop baseball into a 50 billion yuan ($7.67 billion) industry". Its goal is to have over 20 million Chinese viewers by 2025.
