Yes, it’s happening again. Another Brewers day game will be available only on YouTube.
The Milwaukee Brewers game against the Minnesota Twins at 1:10 p.m. CT Wednesday at American Family Field will be available to watch only on the popular streaming service and not its usual place at Bally Sports Wisconsin. But any fan with an internet connection should have access to watch the game, featuring Brewers star pitcher Corbin Burnes looking to finish off a two-game sweep.
Announcers Scott Braun, Dan Plesac and Amy Gutierrez will be on the call. You can, find the Brewers-Twins broadcast at youtube.com/mlb or youtube.com/brewers, or at the Brewers official website.
The game is available for free and accessible without the need to download software or a special app.
One of the features of the broadcast includes the option to choose either team’s radio audio feed, synced with the video, so you can let Bob Uecker and Jeff Levering be your narrators if you so choose.
If you’re frustrated by MLB games showing up in seemingly random places, you’re not alone; multiple streaming services have entered the baseball streaming game this season, temporarily forcing consumers out of normal routines. Many consumers are still getting used to the Bally Sports Wisconsin app, newly available within the state without a cable or satellite account.
Essentially, the streaming-service sampling serves as a trial balloon for customers and represents a baby step toward a much broader streaming component in the years ahead.
“I think these leagues do realize they have to start educating their customers about how to watch their games on streaming, because in 10 years, that might be the way you watch games. But they’re also not naïve enough to completely pull games away from linear TV where there are still tremendous eyeballs and ad dollars,” said Jason Gurwin of The Streamable, a site dedicated to watching and covering matters of content streaming. “Remember there are still 70 million with cable subscriptions; this isn’t a tiny fraction of the population. Sure it’s not the almost 100 million when it was near its peak, but there still are a lot of people who get their TV in a traditional way.”
Gurwin thinks streaming services have appropriately tested the waters, such as Amazon streaming NFL games in a non-exclusive broadcast, followed by what’s to come later this football season, when Thursday night games will stream exclusively on Amazon and not on traditional channels.
“People who have never used a streaming app before just get lost every single time one of these exclusive games are on,” Gurwin said. “We’re going to see it with AppleTV+ games, games on Prime Video. You’re going to have to educate people who are still using traditional linear TV how to access streaming apps to watch these games.”
JR Radcliffe can be reached at (262) 361-9141 or jradcliffe@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JRRadcliffe.
