At Bat Gets Its Annual Spring Training Update

NEW YORK, Feb. 26, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The Spring Training update for MLB.com At Bat, available now across phones and tablets, annually marks the return of live Major League Baseball games for millions of fans. Developed by MLBAM, At Bat returns with new features and technology built for fans, who in 2015 established many unprecedented levels of engagement with the app.

BY THE NUMBERS - 2015
13.1 MILLION – New Record Downloads (+21% YOY)
1.7 BILLION – New Record App Starts (+40% YOY)

Highest Grossing Sports App
At Bat was the top grossing sports app in the United States for the seventh straight year in 2015. Globally, At Bat reached the top grossing spot for sports apps in 97 different countries.

Engagement
Baseball fans consumed a record 8.4 billion minutes in At Bat last year. During the MLB regular season, At Bat was the number one ranked app across the entire sports category for total minutes consumed.

Global Growth
For the first time ever in 2015, millions of Spanish-speaking baseball fans around the world had access to a fully native language At Bat experience. The top countries for Spanish-speaking At Bat users outside the 50 United States were: 1.) Venezuela; 2.) Dominican Republic; 3.) Mexico; 4.) Puerto Rico. In total, more than one million Spanish-speaking users downloaded At Bat after the new feature launched for Opening Day 2015.

Apple Watch
At Bat for Apple Watch debuted as the new device launched on April 24. During the 2015 season, fans accessed 26 million Glances to quickly check live game scores, pitch tracking, standings, stats and many other features available with At Bat for Apple Watch.

NEW IN 2016

• Portrait and Landscape orientations (iPad only)
• Multitasking split view (select iPads only)
• Picture-in-Picture streaming for live video and highlights (select iPads only)
• App redesign includes Gameday, News Reader, Videos, Sortable Stats and more (iPhone, iPad)
• App redesign to support material design guidelines (Android phones & tablets)
• New UI experience for League and Team News readers (Android phones & tablets)

SPRING TRAINING FEATURES
(NOTE: Regular Season & Additional New Features will be available before Opening Day)

• Watch live streaming of more than 275 available Spring Training games with an MLB.TV Premium subscription (iPhone, iPad, select Android phones and tablets, Kindle Fire, Fire Phone)
• Listen live to available Spring Training radio broadcasts (all)
• Multi-platform live audio access for At Bat Premium subscribers (portable to Mac or PC with a valid MLB.com account)
• Universal support for At Bat Premium subscribers, with accessibility on iPhone, iPad and other supported smartphones and tablets
• Track batter-by-batter action for every Spring Training game (all)
• Comb through sortable batting, pitching and fielding statistics (all)
• Stay on top of breaking news, schedules, interactive rosters and player stats for every team (all)
• Customize At Bat's home screen to feature your favorite team (all phones)
• Favorite team icon home screen widget for one-click access to your favorite team's At Bat homepage (Android phones)
• Access to a video library archive, searchable by player, team or keyword (all phones)
• Classic games video archive, featuring dozens of baseball's most legendary games (all)
• Search function for all active and historic MLB player cards (all phones)
• Closed captioning for live video (all)
• Watch MLB Network programming (all; requires pay TV authentication)
• Application is now available in Spanish language anywhere in the world; device language must be set to Spanish (all)

A SINGLE SUBSCRIPTION ON EVERY PLATFORM
Once again, MLB.TV Premium subscribers will receive a free upgrade to the complete suite of At Bat's premium features. Fans also may subscribe to MLB.com At Bat and have access to its premium features on the Apple App Store or Google Play for a yearly subscription of $19.99, covering more than 2,500 live MLB games in 2016 from Spring Training through Opening Day to the World Series. Subscribers also may pay $2.99/month with the recurring billing offering.

With an At Bat subscription, users will have multi-platform live audio access for portability to take home, away and Spanish-language audio feeds to desktop and laptop computers. Subscribers also will be able to get full premium feature access across iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, supported Android smartphones and tablets and Amazon Kindle Fire and Fire Phone.

MLB.com At Bat is the official application of Major League Baseball.  For more information, visit MLB.com.

Data sources: Adobe Analytics, comScore

SOURCE MLB Advanced Media, L.P.