It's opening day for most Major League Baseball teams today, and you're ready to eat some Cracker Jacks and catch America's favorite pastime. Sure, you could buy a ticket and head to a stadium. You could turn on your TV and flip through the channels. If you're a super fan, you can subscribe to the MLB's online service.
Or, for some games this season, you can go to Yahoo. Yahoo Sports plans to livestream one MLB game each day for free—180 games in all, complete with commercial breaks. (Per usual, live games will be blocked in their local markets.)
For the most part, Yahoo may not feature very prominently in your life. The company has struggled to maintain its grip on our digital attention as Google, Facebook, and others consume most of our time. But millions of sports fans still come to Yahoo for sports. Yahoo features sports reporting and commentary as well as a hugely popular fantasy sports league. For baseball fans, the MLB "Free Game of the Day" feature may be another draw.
This isn't the first time Yahoo has streamed sports live in its quest to draw in sports fans. And the company's continued efforts in this area points to a bigger future where we may be able to catch live sports—pay TV's last line of defense—beyond the walls of costly cable contracts. Yahoo has also streamed NHL games, PGA featured holes, and the Internet's first NFL game.
