Rob Manfred discussed MLB’s change in attitude towards content creators

What has driven Major League Baseball’s increased relationship with content creators? During the All-Star break, Rob Manfred discussed that matter with Pat McAfee.

In June, a partnership between MLB and Jomboy Media was announced when MLB purchased a minority stake in the company. That coincided with what has generally been a more open approach with content creators and social media as it relates to MLB material. Manfred acknowledged that a lot of that tension was caused by an outdated policy.

“The problem is we got into this thing where we thought we could drive everything to our platforms,” Manfred said to McAfee, H/T Margaret Fleming, Front Office Sports. “When he became commissioner, he said, people “came to [him] 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.”

MLB is not the only league to have struggled in that regard. The PGA Tour has had similar issues. Earlier in July, Tour CEO Brian Rolapp had a quote similar to Manfred’s, saying “we need to go where the fans are.”

Manfred also acknowledged that MLB’s updated policy is going well, saying it “has been a really good thing for us, a really good thing for us.”