Major League Baseball Renews Key Partnership with Google Cloud to Continue Innovating MLB.TV, MLB Media Platforms for Baseball Fans Around the World

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Oct 06, 2022, 08:00 ET

SUNNYVALE, Calif. and NEW YORK, Oct. 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Google Cloud and Major League Baseball (MLB) today announced an expanded, multi-year, strategic partnership to continue innovating MLB's media products and properties, such as MLB.TV and other media platforms. MLB has chosen Google Cloud as its strategic cloud provider to accelerate its worldwide delivery efforts that will help yield even more real-time and personalized experiences for baseball fans around the globe.

With this partnership, MLB will utilize a full suite of Google Cloud products including Anthos, BigQuery, Cloud Armor, Looker, and Google Cloud Media APIs, which are critical components for producing live and on-demand video workflows. Additionally, MLB will pilot Google Cloud's Media CDN, a modern, extensible platform for delivering immersive experiences that leverages the same infrastructure as YouTube. Optimized for streaming video and large file download workloads, Media CDN will enable MLB.TV to deliver live action, commentary and archival content with scale, security, and performance at the forefront.

The expanded partnership will enable MLB to continue reaching baseball fans in new and more dynamic ways by focusing on the following areas:

Enhanced Video Experiences: In the streaming era, direct-to-consumer digital media experiences continue to grow in popularity as more audiences primarily consume content online. MLB's decision to expand its partnership with Google Cloud will enable the creation of even more innovative and engaging content for the league's media products, including MLB.TV. MLB will leverage Google Cloud's global infrastructure and solutions such as Media CDN and Media APIs to drive this innovation.
Modernized Supply Chain: Expected to be powered in large part by Google Cloud, MLB's media supply chain will enable the flexible creation, management, and distribution of content. This will help MLB stream content at faster speeds, with minimal latency, and provide seamless packaging of content for consumers. It will also be able to securely deliver video experiences to a multitude of end points across the world.
Personalized Fan Experiences: Leveraging Google Cloud's extensive expertise in data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML), MLB will gain real-time insights to continue improving the fan viewing experience. For example, MLB will be able to continue organizing and tagging its vast historical collection of baseball footage in the Major League Baseball Film & Video Archive, which will allow archivists a more seamless process and keep making it easier for fans to search and view highlights from the past on platforms like MLB Film Room. MLB will also be able to provide more personalized viewing experiences and recommendations based on Google Cloud's AI models.

"Google Cloud has been an outstanding partner to baseball, helping us innovate platforms that provide our fans with exceptional real-time experiences, from Statcast to Film Room," said Commissioner of Baseball Robert D. Manfred, Jr. "With their leading expertise in everything from data analytics to machine learning, this partnership provides us with an unmatched extension of technological resources. Now we can continue collaborating with Google Cloud as a means of further delivering unparalleled digital experiences for our fans."

"Major League Baseball has been a clear leader in digital media for decades, bringing unforgettable moments to homes, offices, and fans across the world for the last 20 years," said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. "We look forward to starting the next chapter of our partnership with the league to further advance its media offerings for years to come by using our data-driven capabilities, AI and ML, and secure global infrastructure."

As the first professional sports league to live stream a complete regular season, MLB has continued to invest over the last two decades in technology partnerships to improve fan experiences. Today's announcement builds on MLB and Google Cloud's 2020 partnership to upgrade its business processes and support next-level fan experiences with Google Cloud's data and analytics solutions. In the last three years, MLB has migrated its cloud and on-premise systems to Google Cloud and has leveraged Google Cloud's industry-leading machine learning, analytics, application management, and data/video storage capabilities to increase reliability and manage governance at scale.

About Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball (MLB) is the most historic professional sports league in the United States and consists of 30 member clubs in the U.S. and Canada, representing the highest level of professional baseball. Led by Commissioner Robert D. Manfred, Jr., MLB remains committed to making an impact in the communities of the U.S., Canada and throughout the world, perpetuating the sport's larger role in society and permeating every facet of baseball's business, marketing, community relations and social responsibility endeavors. MLB currently features record levels of competitive balance, continues to expand its global reach through programming and content to fans all over the world, and registered records in games and minutes watched this season on MLB.TV. With the continued success of MLB Network and MLB digital platforms, MLB continues to find innovative ways for its fans to enjoy America's National Pastime and a truly global game. For more information on Major League Baseball, visit www.MLB.com.

About Google Cloud

Google Cloud accelerates every organization's ability to digitally transform its business. We deliver enterprise-grade solutions that leverage Google's cutting-edge technology – all on the cleanest cloud in the industry. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted partner to enable growth and solve their most critical business problems.

SOURCE Google Cloud