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Major League Baseball has grown considerably online and on social media over the last few years, as the league has seemingly opened up more opportunities for content creators to openly discuss games and highlights. That wasn't always the case, and MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred admitted that on Friday.
During a guest appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show,” the 66-year-old commissioner claimed that league decision makers smartly changed their strategy in an effort to gain more eyeballs on the sport.
“Well, you know it absolutely is a great thing for Major League Baseball,” said Rob Manfred. “100 percent. Ironically, in the early years, we were very forward-thinking on internet delivery. MLB.TV was the first over-the-top product. The problem is we got into this thing where we thought we could drive everything to our platforms…
“Some of the people you (Pat McAfee) were referring to came to me and said, ‘We got this wrong. We're just in the wrong place.' We're trying to drive everybody here. The right strategy is to make sure we are where the people are. You gotta go where people are going. And that shift has been a really good thing for us.”
"We got this wrong."
Rob Manfred tells Pat McAfee that MLB realized they were wrong to stop content creators from growing the sport pic.twitter.com/nqve7Wyvys
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) July 18, 2025
Rob Manfred was elected as MLB Commissioner in early 2015, making the 2025 season the 10th year with him in charge. For a while, the league placed limitations on content creators. That decision prevented the league from growing, as younger fans just weren't tuning into the sport.
Once the decision was made to allow content creators to do their thing, Major League Baseball has seemingly had an increase in views, not just in the United States of America, but also in countries like Japan, Mexico, and South Korea. Had Rob Manfred and MLB decision makers chosen to allow the league to grow online and in social media sooner, then the league could be much more implemented in sports culture across the globe. But as they say, better late than never.
