The MLB Players Association today will introduce a redesigned MLBPlayers.com website, the result of a new digital services partnership with NeuLion.
The move takes the site away from the MLB Advanced Media platform, which had hosted it since 2005, and introduces a substantial redesign, as well as a rethinking and expansion of the union’s content development and distribution strategy. The NeuLion-MLBPA deal follows a request for proposal and site redesign process that began early this year.
“This new relationship now gives us full control of our message and the ability to distribute content in real time,” said Greg Bouris, MLBPA director of communications. The union often had to go through MLBAM to have something published, but it has direct access to the platform in the arrangement with NeuLion.
“This is in one respect the end of a process to get this new site up and running, but really, it’s the beginning of a whole new way we can communicate with a global audience and provide a resource to our membership,” he said.
The reworked MLBPlayers.com will have regular features including a “#Players411” on Mondays showcasing current players, “#PlayersChoiceCuts” on Wednesdays featuring union licensing activities and new product releases, and “#GoingToBat” on Fridays profiling community, activism and philanthropic activities of the union and individual players. Each feature will be tied into the union’s social media extensions.
The new site will have news updates on union activities, supplemented by a photography relationship with Getty Images, a history section burnished by content developed for the MLBPA’s 50th anniversary this year, and a directory and links to every union licensee and sponsor and a more prominent featuring of those partners. Union officials also intend the new MLBPlayers.com to include video programming, and foresee the site as a potential source for first-person player content, similar to sites such as The Players’ Tribune.
Financial terms between the MLBPA and NeuLion were not disclosed, but NeuLion is essentially providing its services as a vendor. For Plainview, N.Y.-based NeuLion, which has built a base among college athletic departments, professional leagues and television programmers, the MLBPA represents its first sports union client.
“We have a lot of experience in fast publishing, particularly for the colleges we work with, that is very similar to what is happening here,” said Chris Wagner, NeuLion executive vice president of marketplace strategy.
MLBAM in recent years has veered away from website hosting deals toward the development of larger video streaming relationships and the creation of the BAM Tech spinoff. It did, however, participate in the union’s RFP process, and maintains a licensing relationship with the MLBPA, particularly for the use of player likenesses in products such as the “RBI Baseball” video game series.
