Baseball’s bigger than ever, and MLB teams are hitting home runs on Facebook video.
America’s pastime might be in the off-season, but with the year at a close, we can look at which baseball teams scored the most-engaging videos on Facebook.
Think it’s all about football? Major League Baseball is currently valued at a record $36 billion, and teams are worth an average $1.2 billion. This number is up 48% from last year, according to Forbes. And the New York Yankees tie with the Dallas Cowboys for America’s most valuable sports team.
While television leads the charge in driving these figures, MLB and other sports leagues are shifting focus to social to keep fans engaged on their second screens. And for many, digital has become the primary screen as the trend of ‘cord-cutting’ grows.
With our Spike database, we examined the top videos the MLB teams put on their Facebook pages in 2015. We totaled up shares, likes, and comments to find the most engaging videos of the year.
Top Engaging Facebook Videos For MLB Teams In 2015
One team dominated our list for the top engaging videos of the year. This was the Chicago Cubs’ chance at making it into the World Series, and their fans went wild on social. Though they didn’t produce the #1 post, their strength across the chart makes them our number one team.
The Chicago Cubs
Seven of the top ten most engaging videos came from the Chicago Cubs. This was a stellar year for the Cubs, as they made it to the National League playoffs. The Cubs haven’t appeared in a World Series since 1945, let alone won a World Series since 1908.
Their top video, “Cubs clinch NLS berth” had over 3.7 million views on Facebook. It celebrated their making it into the playoffs that could propel them into the World Series.
People love to rally around an underdog, and an 108 year streak of not winning a World Series is a pretty lengthy one. With 127,000 likes, 67,000 shares, and 2,900 comments, it’s clear that there were many fans hoping this would be the year the Cubs broke their curse.
Toronto Blue Jays
The Toronto Blue Jays captured the top spot in the rankings. Their video of José Bautista leading the team to victory in the final inning drove over 9.6 million views.
The video had over 140,000 likes, 7,300 comments, and an astounding 131,000 shares. Even fans of the opposing team left approving comments on the video, one Rangers fan saying “it was by far the most intense and awesome series I’ve ever seen, two teams ready to fight and die on that field…”.
Just over three minutes long, the video exceeds the recommended ‘minute or less’ that best captures attention on Facebook. Here, content trumps common best practice.
It’s the premier rule of content: quality is king. For sports, their product is their content, and a truly thrilling game will remind fans of the sport, regardless of team, what they love about baseball.
Boston Red Sox
In basketball, we saw how teams had their content succeed on social media because of fan favorites, and baseball has its heroes too. The Boston Red Sox’s top video on Facebook was of David Ortiz hitting his 500th career homer.
The video had over 2 million views. Ortiz’s record brought in 65,000 likes, 45,000 shares, and 2,100 comments.
The video’s success goes further than just Ortiz’s prowess. We’ve talked about how record-breaking moments are big achievers on social. Teams have a legacy, and fans want to be part of that legend. The top video for the New York Yankees this year was also a historical one, highlighting Alex Rodriguez making his 3,000th hit.
Kansas City Royals
The Kansas City Royals, this year’s World Series Champions, are responsible for the only non-game video on our top 10 list. The video showed Salvador Perez chasing and drenching the team’s manager, Ned Yost in Gatorade after winning the World Series. With over 2.5 million views, it was captioned: The final Salvy bath of the season went to NED! #Crowned
The video reached over 70,000 likes, 30,000 shares, and 1,000 comments. The “Salvy baths”, as they were dubbed, were a season-long tradition of Perez. Despite not being an in-the-game video, the video still followed some of our compelling tactics, by being short, viewable without video, and thrilling.
San Francisco Giants
As we saw with the Toronto Blue Jays, the moments that capture a team’s victory are wins on social too. The San Francisco Giants’ top video of the year was of Hunter Pence completing a double play that secured their win against the New York Mets and ended the game.
Like with the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, Hunter Pence is also a fan favorite. This video affirmed to fans that he was still a top player for the team, despite a fractured arm that left him out of several games earlier in the season. The video brought one of the team heroes back to glory status.
The video had over 2 million views for the victorious play. It captured over 63,000 likes, 27,000 shares, and 3,400 comments. Fans were effusive in their comments, cheering Pence’s triumphant return.
How MLB is Rocking Their Video Content
In this roundup, we saw that only one of the videos wasn’t of game-time action. Baseball is a sport that moves languorously and fans want to relive the action moments that make or break their team’s victory.
By shifting focus to highlighting videos, MLB is keeping those fans engaged, so that they can continue to relive their team’s best plays and debate each second.
Baseball is only getting bigger. Each of the baseball teams increased at least 20% in value this year.
Part of that is driven by the success of Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM), the digital arm that is changing media for baseball. MLBAM is already partnering their technology with other giants such as HBO, ESPN, and WWE, to revolutionize live broadcast across mobile, tablet, desktop, and TV.
MLB also launched a baseball-centric social media app for fans in October. Trying to keep engagement going in the off-season, the app lets users create and share their own content with fellow fans. The app, called MLB Fans, seems to want to contend with Facebook and Twitter.
With more and more fans using Facebook as their source for sports-related content, engaging them digitally is crucial. Traditional TV viewing is falling, while mobile-first experiences are fast on the rise.
MLB is proactively focusing on digital experiences. We’ll keep watching how that translates to social in 2016.
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