Indian multi-sport aggregator FanCode has inked a multi-year deal with top baseball league Major League Baseball (MLB) to live-stream their matches in India.  

This association makes MLB the first baseball league to offer the live streaming route on the FanCode app. Along with the regular season, the app will also cover post-season and the World Series, which features the winner from the American League go up against the champion from the National League.

The 2019 World Series, which decides the champion of MLB, was watched live by an average of almost 14 million viewers, according to Nielsen.

MLB is the oldest and the most popular baseball league in the world, with its origins dating back to 1876.

India presents a lucrative opportunity for MLB considering the popularity of cricket and its similarity to baseball.

“We saw an opportunity in the familiarity that Indians have with the bat and ball sport,” said Jim Small, senior vice president, international, MLB.

The current MLB season will be a shortened one, down to a 60-game season from its standard 162-game season for every team due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In addition to streaming up to four games each day, FanCode will also provide video and non-video content including schedules, scores, highlights, fantasy research, and expert tips.

The expert fantasy tips will aid users in making fantasy teams on fantasy gaming platform Dream11, which owns FanCode.

With the addition of MLB, FanCode is now covering and live streaming the top three American sports leagues from three different sports categories - Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association (NBA), and National Football League (NFL).

In a separate deal, FanCode also landed the live streaming rights for the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) 2020 in India, making them their official streaming partner.

“We are glad to have the opportunity to provide comprehensive coverage of CPL to Indian cricket fans,” said Yannick Colaco, co-founder of FanCode.