Monday, August 29, 2011

Major League Baseball Not Scared of New Media

Somewhat refreshingly, Major League Baseball has embraced newer online forms of media, and actually does not believe that adding new modes cannibalizes television, for example. Starting in 2002, MLB began broadcasting livestreams of games over the Internet.

MLB currently serves up nine million video streams each day, including 1 million live streams. Additionally, they have two million paid subscribers to MLB.tv and their "At Bat" mobile apps (which also stream video).

For many professional sports leagues, complicated television rights or fears that Internet streaming would eat into lucrative TV broadcasts have hampered the availability of Internet streaming. For Major League Baseball, the fears of audience fragmentation have been overblown.

“We’ve learned that wherever you are, you watch on the biggest screen you can,” MLBAM CEO Robert Bowman told The New York Times in 2008. In other words, MLB.tv won’t cut into TV revenue, according to Bowman, because most viewers will opt for TV over their computer or iPhone if the broadcast is available to them.

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