MLB At Bat app now sees 1M users a day, but won’t take over your homescreen

Major League Baseball’s At Bat app has had its success well documented this season: on Opening Day of the season, its apps were opened 6 million times alone. And just a few weeks later, usage hasn’t really dropped off that much. The MLB mobile apps are opened over 5 million times per day by over 1 million unique users, Major League Baseball Advanced Media President and CEO Bob Bowman said Tuesday.

At Bat is available on iOS, Android and for Blackberry 10 devices. There are different price points — from free to $ 19.99 to a full live TV package for mobile and desktop that costs $ 130 a season. Unless users are watching a live game — which can stretch to over 3 hours — he said users spend about 10 to 12 minutes per day in the app.

But for all that time spent, Bowman — who will be appearing at our paidContent Live event tomorrow – said he wasn’t sure about monopolizing his customers’ time while on mobile devices. When asked at the Dive into Mobile conference Tuesday whether he could foresee an MLB-branded homescreen play like what Facebook is doing with Home, he sounded skeptical.

“I don’t know the answer to that. We’re always one for trying to experiment,” he said. “And we don’t mind failing.” But baseball needs to balance being available and not overwhelming its fans and users of its apps.

“Ours is valuable content and we know people love baseball,” Bowman said. “But you’ve got to respect people’s time. To say we want to own every piece of every day, we’re hardpressed to say that. We like to be the hotel after a long trip.”