Free CPBL broadcasts are back on

Yesterday I wrote a post about Eleven Sports discontinuing live broadcasts of the Chinese Professional Baseball League in the United States. English-speaking baseball fans had grown accustomed to the free live streams, but were now being asked to pay $2.49 per game to watch them on a service called LIVENow. 

Many fans complained about the newly-implemented paywall, and Eleven Sports did something that corporations rarely do - they listened. 

The sports broadcasting organization announced this morning on Twitter that they would continue streaming the games in the United States for free on LIVENow. 

□ | Dear US baseball fans, we hear you loud and clear.

We appreciate that this is a special time for everyone and so we’ve asked our partners at #LIVENow to deliver you LIVE coverage of the upcoming #CPBL games for FREE. pic.twitter.com/TMdZRadiKL

— ELEVEN SPORTS TAIWAN (@ElevenSportsTW) May 8, 2020

"Dear US baseball fans," the statement from Eleven Sports reads. "We hear you loud and clear. We appreciate that this is a special time for everyone and so we've asked our partners at LIVENow to deliver you LIVE coverage of our upcoming CPBL games for FREE."

Eleven Sports will continue to broadcast CPBL games for free to the rest of the world, but for those of us here in the United States who have started following Taiwanese baseball, LIVENow will be our platform going forward. 

This development is great for everyone, as fans were threatening to stop watching when the paywall was put into place. Now fans can continue to watch the CPBL and the league will still get exposure all across the world.