Streaming Media Steps Up to the Plate
Major League Baseball's Internet Ambitions
By Jennie Rose
Give $90 million over four years to build and maintain a Web site, appeal to baseball fans fanatical enough to use their mobile phones to check scores, then charge for Webcasts of the games, and how could you lose? In the summer of 2000, Major League Baseball had this plan in mind when club owners voted to centralize all Major League Internet operations under the umbrella of an official league site at MLB.com.
Each of Major League Baseball's teams are contributing $1 million per year to MLB's Advanced Media (MLBAM) group, which maintains the MLB.com site and infrastructure. According to spokesman Jim Gallagher, the site has funding commitments from all the teams that extend for a four-year period.
Unveiled on April 1, 2001 after a five-month-long development process, the relaunched MLB.com site gives visitors access to stats, summaries, and even pitch-by-pitch re-enactments of games. (
Figure 1 shows MLB's official site.) Perhaps the most interesting site feature, though, is a video-on-demand system that lets consumers not only watch their favorite games online, but also create custom clips and instant replays. Instead of sticking with a revenue model that relies on advertising, as other sports sites and video providers have done, MLBAM decided to put together a subscription-based service for the video-on-demand features.
