Major League Baseball has updated its line of at-home and in-stadium mobile applications to keep sports fans plugged in all season.

MLB Advanced Media ? the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball ? has revamped its At The Ballpark, Beat The Streak Presented by Dunkin? Donuts and At Bat mobile apps across multiple operating systems. Additionally, the company has rolled out the MLB Ar Bat app on BlackBerry?s new Z10 smartphone.

"Entertainment experiences as a rule have different user requirements than commercial experiences with the brand ? especially when the MLB brand is probably less important at a ballpark than the actual team brand," said Steve Timpson, president of SiteMinis, Atlanta.

"In this case it probably makes sense as an in-stadium user experience is fundamentally different than the out-of-stadium fantasy experience," he said.

Mr. Timpson is not associated with MLB. He commented based on his expertise on the subject.

MLB did not respond to press inquiries.

Mobile streaming
One of MLB.com?s most popular apps is At Bat. Last year, the company announced that the app was bringing in 80,000 live streams per day (see story).
 
MLB.TV subscribers can use the app for free. Alternatively, fans can access the app for $19.99 annually or $2.99 per month.

With the new revamp, individual team pages have been updated and video highlights have been expanded.

Other big feature updates include more push notification options and new navigation.

Closed captioning for live video is also enabled in the app.

MLB?s Beat the Streak app has also been updated to include more push notifications and reminders that keep users plugged into their games throughout the season.

The app lets fans vie for a $5.6 million grand prize. Each day, consumers pick a MLB player that they think will make a hit during a game that day. If the player makes a hit, the streak continues on to the next day. If the player does not make a hit, the streak ends and players can start over the next day.

The goal is to accumulate a 56 hitting streak to win the prize. For 2013, the app has been updated with a new rule that keeps a streak going when users forget to make their pick.

At the game
MLB has also updated its At the Ballpark app, which is geared to help in-stadium sports fans in the 30 different MLB ballparks.

Each ballpark in the app includes customized features, including social media, offers, rewards or check-ins, per MLB.

For instance, the tickets section of the app has been updated to include special club-specific offers.

Additionally, certain ballparks and clubs let users save their tickets via Apple?s Passbook to show at the game. Seat and experience upgrades are also available via the app in some ballparks.

The My Journal section of the app has been updated. Users can upload information such as photos from their trips to ballparks back to 2005 via the app. 

From there, consumers can watch video clips from the games that they attended.

"Mobile is the fastest growing channel for brand growth ? sports teams are high brand-consumer relationships that must be a part of the changing access point that engage users," Mr. Timpson said.
 
"MLB has had significant fan at stadium and viewer drop of in the last decade," he said. "Mobile may be the most significant growth vehicular for baseball and other sports."

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York