MLB tonight will continue its aggressive All-Star Week social media efforts by allowing players to tweet and post on Facebook during the All-Star Game once they are removed from the contest. The first-time effort represents a significant departure from regular season and playoff rules in which players may not be on social media from 30 minutes before a game until after its conclusion. A social media station has been set up behind one of the Kauffman Stadium dugouts. The initiative arrives after months of planning between MLB, MLBAM, the MLBPA, Fox Sports and other involved parties. It also represents a delicate balancing act between the All-Star Game's status as an exhibition contest and one that determines home field advantage in the World Series. "We need to be very sensitive, and preserve the integrity of the game," said MLB Exec VP/Business Tim Brosnan. "So we'll continue to walk before we run and be very thoughtful and deliberate." Bluefin Labs, helping MLB with the in-event social media efforts both last night and tonight, said yesterday's State Farm Home Run Derby generated more than 633,000 social media comments. The social media volume is more than twice what was generated during last year's Derby in Phoenix.
UNDER THE RADAR EXPERIMENT: MLBAM on Sunday quietly conducted a social media experiment in which it live streamed the MLB Futures Game on Twitter. The event, believed to the first major pro sports event streamed live on Twitter, involved a tweet from @MLB that stayed at the top of followers' pages with a video player showing a live stream of the game. MLBAM reconfigured its existing video player to make it workable within Twitter. The effort generated about 10,000 users, and MLBAM is now actively exploring further similar experiments.
