Facebook Wants You To Spend More Time On Facebook By Watching Baseball

Facebook Inc FB wants to take you in for the ball game.

According to reports earlier this week, the company is in talks to live stream one Major League Baseball game per week in the 2017 season, a move to keep users engaged a bit longer and help boost ad revenue.

In April 2016, Facebook reported its global users spent more than 50 minutes per day on the site. With MLB games averaging about three hours in length, the potential partnership could help extend previous figures.

Facebook's Big Game

If the contract comes through, Facebook will begin to beef up its live sports lineup, which in 2017 will consist of 46 matches by the Mexican soccer league, Liga MX.

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However, the company has previously struggled to close athletics deals. In 2016, Facebook lost its bid for National Football League streaming rights to Twitter Inc TWTR, which went on to sign additional deals with the National Basketball Association and Professional Golfers' Association. But Facebook fans enjoyed a sparse offering of table tennis and basketball.