MLB.com Celebrates Fifth Anniversary of At Bat

It was five years ago this month that following live Major League Baseball games on a mobile device changed forever with the historic launch of the Apple App Store and MLB.com At Bat, one of the original 500 apps to launch on July 10, 2008. Since its debut, At Bat has become a must-have for baseball fans and a symbol of MLB Advanced Media’s leadership in mobile tech development, including native user interface design, feature set integration and live high definition media delivery.

Fans responded early and often. At Bat has been the highest-grossing sports app each year of availability and has been accessed 1.5 billion times since that first day when 5,000 fans paid $4.99 for the first edition of the app, which featured “only” a live league-wide scoreboard and video highlights.

It wasn’t long before MLBAM’s mobile development roadmap included adding features to expand the fan experience, such as Gameday Pitch-by-Pitch tracking (Sept. 2008); Live radio broadcasts (March 2009); Live video streaming (June 2009); MLB.TV subscription access (July 2009); in-app purchase (September 2009); iPad (April 2010); in-ballpark features (July 2010); mobile food ordering (September 2010); favorite team customization (March 2011); universal app for iPhone and iPad (March 2012); Ford Sync access and Passbook ticket delivery (September 2012); and Gameday Audio cross-platform access (March 2013).

In 2013, MLB.com At Bat has been downloaded 7.1 million times, setting another new single-year record. At Bat surpassed the previous mark of 6.7 million downloads on June 21, less than three full months into the season.

AT BAT BY THE NUMBERS, THROUGH THE YEARS

– 21MM downloads

– 500MM live audio and video streams delivered

– 60% of subscribers use At Bat every day during the season

– 1.8B minutes of live video watched by fans

– 5,000 different types of mobile devices have had At Bat installed

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