Warner Bros Discovery Inc (NASDAQ:WBD) has picked the beginning of the Major League Baseball (MLB) season to kickstart live sports coverage on its Max streaming platform.
Alongside national basketball, ice hockey and college athletics, Warner Bros will begin streaming baseball on the Max platform when the league’s playoffs begin on October 3, a source told CNBC.
Matches will be shown simultaneously on Warner Bros’ cable television network and its streaming platform, as the company bids to boost revenue from live sports coverage.
“Our view is sports is such a premium offering with a very focused and passionate fan base,” said the company’s global streaming president, JB Perrette, during last week’s second-quarter earnings call.
“Generally […] it needs to be monetized incrementally,” he added.
According to sources, no baseball games would be shown exclusively on the streaming platform, which was said to have 95.8 million subscribers as of the end of the last quarter.
Additional costs of the streamed sports coverage also remain to be seen, with a premium subscription for Max currently costing US$15.99 a month.