Yahoo's going to stream a bunch of free Major League Baseball games
People will come, Ray. Or they'll at least stream it.
Yahoo will stream 180 Major League Baseball games for free in 2016, a move that takes the embattled online company deeper into the sports media world.
The news came just hours after news leaked that Twitter had won the rights to stream 10 games in the upcoming NFL season, rights that had reportedly attracted a range of digital suitors including Amazon, Facebook and Verizon.
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Yahoo will stream one game per day for the duration of the season. In the first month, it will feature each of the 30 teams at least once.
One catch: where local broadcasters have TV rights to the games, Yahoo won't show them.
The deal adds another piece to Yahoo's growing live sports package, which now includes NHL hockey games and PGA Tour golf.
Yahoo also dropped a reported $20 million on the rights to stream one NFL game last season, a move that few analysts believe paid off. Twitter reportedly paid $10 million for an entire season of NFL broadcast rights for Thursdays.
The push into streaming sports comes as Yahoo endures an increasingly public battle for its future. CEO Marissa Mayer has been called on by investors to sell the company's core business, a move she has reportedly resisted.
She has, however, caved to pressure to begin cutting spending, including a plan to cut 15% of Yahoo's workforce and shuttering many of its less popular digital magazines.
Amidst those cuts, Yahoo has shown a dedication to sports, giving star NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski his own basketball-centric vertical, aptly named "The Vertical."
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Topics Yahoo
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
