Weather dampens Facebook's Phillies-Mets broadcast: Live updates and more

Gabe Fernandez

Weather dampens Facebook's Phillies-Mets broadcast: Live updates and more image

The Phillies and Mets are scheduled to face off Wednesday in the first Facebook-exclusive broadcast of the season, but so far Mother Nature has other plans. The game was scheduled to start at 1:10 p.m. EDT, but rain forced the game into a weather delay.

Even without the precipitation-based issues, the Facebook live stream has shown to be a less-than-ideal viewing platform for some. As is the case with most social media outlets, the comments on the stream grew toxic, whether it was because folks were angry about the delay, the broadcast location, or former President Barack Obama.

angry facebook comment

Even before the game had started, there were already skeptics of the event poking fun, or just plain upset, at the whole thing.

To the credit of the game's broadcast producers, they did take the time to break out of a weather-delay announcement screen to cut to the team of Scott Braun, Cliff Floyd and John Kruk for a game preview, and Alexa Datt for a weather update.

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As of 2 p.m., it appeared that the tarp was being removed from the diamond to start the game soon. Sporting News will update this article with more information as it becomes available. You can catch the game here.

All updates will be in Eastern Daylight Time.

5:52 p.m. The MLB got the stream back up and running. Lots of angry comments about the stream at the end of the game and the MLB Live account had to point out how to disable comments to viewers.

4:30 p.m. This doesn't seem ideal.

4:13 p.m. The good news is that it appears Facebook has cleared some of the clutter on the live stream.

4 p.m. The 80,000-viewer mark has been reached!

2:58 p.m. Viewership has hit the 60,000 mark.

2:57 p.m. Looks like the rain delay hasn't affected the game much.

2:50 p.m. The viewer total is close to 50,000, but earlier, when nothing but the delay screen was on, the numbers were still at five digits and hovering around 17,000.

2:47 p.m. Noah Syndergaard has taken the mound and, with the first out, we're underway!

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2:09 p.m.  A higher power has since apologized for the rain delay.

2:05 p.m.  The game will officially begin at 2:45 p.m. EDT.

Gabe Fernandez