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Major League Baseball Releases Webcasting Plans
TopShelf writes "With spring in the air, it's time to discuss the (US) national pastime. According to this story at CNN, Major League Baseball is planning to webcast 1,000 games this season. The interesting part is that in order not to violate TV blackout rules, they'll try to deny service to viewers who instead have local broadcasts available, using Quova's user-location service. At last, an opportunity to see my hometown Detroit Tigers more than once a year!"
I wonder how they will deal with viewers via proxy?
I like to build things and wire stuff together.
Years ago, the individual radio stations apparently owned the rights to the audio of baseball games, and I listened to them directly from their web site, for free (and heard the local commercials, too...) Then, I think it was about two or three years ago, MLB "found" the Internet and decided it should control all audio broadcasts. Of course, by "control", I mean "Charge $10/yr for what used to be free.".
Last year, they raised the subscription fee to $12/yr. This year, they are apparently raising it to $19.95/yr. And after all that, they still have the local commercials! The commercials are supposedly paying for the broadcast, can't they have them pay for the Internet broadcast too?
I understand that if they provided the service for free, there would be a lot more people using it, and bandwidth isn't free. But did bandwidth costs really go up 100% in the past two or three years? If not, I think a more likely explanation is that Baseball (indeed, all sports) are filled with greedy owners, spoiled players, and weak executives, and that the cost of being a fan will shortly get prohibitive for most people.
Almost right on target. Webcasting would not devalue the broadcasting rights, but does violate them. Each team "owns" the broadcasting rights to their home games. That's a LOT of money. The Yankee Corporation get about $1/month for every person subscribed to their basic cable channel, Yankee Entertainment System (YES). MLB cannot broadcast a competing product without violating their contract, EVEN THOUGH IT'S CHEAPER TO WATCH IT ON CABLE. That is, very few people will watch the Yanks in NYC via the MLB webcast, but MLB has to make some effort to insure YES that they are not undercutting them. It's the appearance of preserving the rights of individual teams rather than appear as a "rival" to them.
All advertising will probably be blacked out or replaced with a "filler" screen so there is no legal problems from that end.
The big losers for this will people who would like to watch the game from work within the "banned" radius. The internet radio version of this was great for people trapped in buildings with no reception. Too bad the MLB got involved and let their lawyers loose on the "implications."
"I may be Love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."
Who gives a rip about major league anymore anyway? The games are boring as hell, your tickets cost at least $50, a beer and a brat another $12 or worse...and who only wants one beer at a ballgame. And who could forget the lovely seating for the fans...half a mile from the damn diamond.
You want real damn baseball, you go to your hometown minor league club. Sit right behind homeplate for $6. $3 for a brat and another $2.50 for a great American MACRObrew. None of that microbrew shit where some pretentious nitwit makes comments like "..a deliciously hoppy body and a crisp bite on the tongue. The nose is that of lemon rinds, and the tasting follows through with a light citrus flavor that cleanses and refreshes the palate..." wanker. Cheer when the pitcher beans a batter in the head for the 7th time in the game. Jump in your seat when a popup fly clangs into the roof of the stands. Get pissed drunk. Taunt the other team and listen to them curse. Moon the mascot if there is one. Yell at the kids. Then stagger home. Minor league's all about mom apple pie and america (and beer). Major's about subway series where no matter what New freakin' York wins, corporate greed, and rich assholes on the team, owning the team, and in the good seats. Screw 'em.