MLB’s apparel and licensing deal with Fanatics and Under Armour will be accelerated following Fanatics’ acquisition last month of VF’s licensed sports group that includes the Majestic Athletic brand. The deal, originally slated to take effect with the ’20 season, will now see the debut of licensed fan gear from Fanatics and UA in ’18 and the on-field uniforms from UA starting in ’19. “The timetable has been moved up. We’re really excited about the prospect of that change taking place more quickly than we originally thought,” said MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred today at the league’s quarterly owners' meeting in N.Y.
The league also unveiled a new partnership with Facebook that will offer weekly live MLB games on the social media platform beginning with Rockies-Reds tomorrow. The weekly Friday night games on Facebook will be offered without regional blackouts to U.S. users from MLB’s official page, with a total of 20 games planned for ’17. “This is really important for us in terms of experimenting with a new partner in this area,” Manfred said. MLB games that had been distributed on Twitter on Friday nights this season will now shift to Tuesdays to accommodate the new Facebook games.
MLB also plans to debut on June 1 a new virtual reality version of its dominant MLB.com At Bat mobile app that will deliver via the Google Daydream platform a first-of-its-kind integration of data and live video in the immersive 360-degree viewing environment. See an MLB.com video on the VR version of the At Bat app.
