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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.
From the article:
At last, an opportunity to see my hometown Detroit Tigers more than once a year!
Why on earth would you want to do that?
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
Blooming, blithering, drivelling, sputtering, drooling morons. But this is what we have come to expect from Bud Selig, unfortunately.
sulli
RTFJ.
As if anyone on Slashdot likes sports!
...posted with the expressed, written conscent nor implied oral conscent of major league baseball. Cease and desist!
why run from Vincenzo?
all we need is little foil hats and they wont be able to read our thoughts to see where we are.... they have satellites you know.
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
Bart: "See, I told you Major League Baseball was spying on me!"
McGuire:"Do you people want answers, or do you want to see me hit some zingers?"
Crowd: "Zingers!"
If the user-location service proves ineffective, what will the MLB do?
Speculation welcome
Unless they break away to commercials between innings, I'm not interested.
Being bombarded by ads (either at home or at the game) has become as much a part of the beloved pasttime as the game itself.
If they're not gonna let me be a part of that, then NO THANKS!
mlb.com They have a java aplett or something that shows a baseball diamond, who's up, The score/ pitch count of every game. During the playoffs They were showing where each pitch was (With a box for the strike zone.)
Its pretty incredible. Baseball is a very data intensive sport
They make you pay a lot for it, and then won't let you watch local games? Not only that, but any time that there is a nationally broadcast game on ESPN, you can't watch any online games.
How many people do they hope to sign up for this?
All it takes is a good run of tracert and some know how of geography to be able to tell where someone is located at. When I want to know if people are full of crap I tracert them and check to see where the major hops stop, Usually around a big city and then a smaller city and u can trace from there.
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.
This is usually due to the player's association's liscensing (sp) decisions. The NFLPA tends to be fairly loose about using the likeness of a past team, although many of the players from that era aren't accuratly represented, and the few that are usually show up because they don't have a limitation on the use of their likeness.
For example, former Cleveland Browns Running back Jim Brown isn't listed as a player with the 1965 Cleveland Browns, but there will be a running back with the number 32 for that team.
The ability to use "all time" teams could be disappearing in the near future. With the popularity of "throwback" jerseys, many retired players have begun looking into the idea of being paid likeness rights (or the jersey equivilent). In their defense, this is fair. Current players get a piece of the merchandising pie, while money from retired players just goes to the retired players association or, in some cases, a general pension fund.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Why would I want to watch a baseball game streamed and compressed on a computer monitor when I could watch it in far better quality on my television? I mean, for the games that aren't shown locally, that'd be cool. But the rest? I can't imagine there would be demand to cheat the system...
Philip Sandifer's academic website
Slightly OT: the major league baseball's website http://mlb.com redirects you to "http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/homepage/mlb_ho mepage.jsp" ! Can you beat that? I've seen this on a web design hall of shame ;^)
The first radio broadcasts were essentially faked...the announcer was not at the park. He had someone relay him the bare facts over the phone, and he would add color commentary according to his imagination and experience with the game. Radio listeners thought he was at the game, and followed every word. This proved to be a hit, and broadcasters were eventually allowed to be inside the park for live action commentary.
What does this have to do with broadbandcasts? Wait and see what content actually shows up on the net... Is it real, or is it Memorex?
Considering a huge amount of traffic will appears to come from Virginia (AOL's big ass proxy) it's funny that there's no local team to block.
Modern baseball tends to get boring. Over expansion has dilluted the talent pool so badly that (for example) pitchers who *might* have made the big leagues twenty years ago as part time relievers are now full time, middle rotation starters. Boring, home-run derby ball.
If they really wanted to churn up a buck they could make available radio broadcasts of 'old time' games. Even better, make them freely available as a move to generate interest in the sport. Think of the benefits and possibilities.
One, you've got MASSIVE amounts of content. IF you got back to the pre-WW2 era you're looking at 20+ clubs playing over 144 games per year. You've games from hall of famers like mickey mantle, ted williams, or jackie robinson playing. This could introduce a younger audience to people they've only heard stories about.
Two, Niche markets and fan base expansion. I live in michigan and have been stuck with the piss poor tigers. Yet, I'm a big fan of the cubs thanks to having WGN tv. Image being able to equally expose all 32 teams in all markets. Long term you could see an overall rise in attendance (fans going to their local park to see their favorite out of state team).
As for niche markets, I'm also brooklyn dodgers fan. The team moved out of new york around the time my father was born. Yet I'd love to sit back on a summer day, and listen to a brooklyn dodgers game. I can't be the only one like this.
Third, and finally, Color. Listening to a game today sounds boring. Most teams have radio annoucers with communications degrees. They call baseball games until they can get a job as news casters. In the 'good old days' you had guys like Harry Carey, or Ernie Harwall who made the most boring baseball game a work of art. There's a great oral history and tradition in baseball. Most of it is lost on guys now. Those intersting, non sequitor stories than a broadcaster can tell during a dull game are what separate the good color men from the bad. think of the stories that are sitting in a vault rusting away right now.
An added benefit of making the old school games available is that you'd have to transfer them off of whatever media they're stored on now (probably steel wire or even wax in some cases, certainly magentic tape for the majority of games) is that you preserve the games for the ages.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Is on "one free beer for everybody in the stands per player who tests positive for steroids night".
I'd be more than happy to send you digital copies of the Detroit Tigers games, if you supply me with the hardware to get it into one of my Linux boxes. :-)
Of course, watching a Detroit Tigers game probably isn't going to be all that interesting, though with Trammel, Parrish, and Gibson behind the scenes now, it should at least be better than the last few seasons! All we need is Mr. Sweet Lou Whitaker back.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
There are several windows programs Visual Route and another I think is called NeoTrace, I'm sure there's something like this for Linux.
sig.
When I want to know if people are full of crap I tracert them
What?? How does this let you know if people are full of crap?
sig.
So, between fall 2000 and fall 2001, this American was living in Ireland. As a NY Mets fan, I was addicted to watching the game on espn.com and listening via webcasts.
Then the trouble began. About a month into the season, it just stopped working. I talked with the SysAdmin at the Irish University I was at (DCU), and nothing had changed with the ports/firewalls/whatever.
Clearly something changed at MLB. I emailed all the different addresses I could come up with, and didn't get a single human reply. They had no problem charging me $10 (advertised $9.95, but they threw in a nickel for "shipping" -- don't get me started on that one), but they never fixed the problem, addressed it, or offered me a refund.
So, I wouldn't buy the service. They screwed me over by (a) not fixing the service when it stopped working, (b) overcharging me for their service, and (c) having the balls to charge for shipping a streamed audio over the Internet.
Screw them.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
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."
For a long time, not one of the three teams in New York (the Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants, of course) would allow radio broadcasts because they were afraid that radio would damage the ticket sales.
The toughest part about watching Tigers game is knowing that the payroll from last year opening day was about $55,000,000. The Red Wings, the greatest team on the planet, has a payroll of $66,085,756 (as of Feb 14th). Hopefully Tram can turn things around.
The technology is there for people to broadcast Max Headroom-style (or maybe Gargoyle-style) 1st-person singular video accounts of things like -- for instance -- baseball games, complete with commentary, stats and mugshots gathered instantly from Google, overlaid local weather conditions scraped from the Weather Underground ... (Why don't more notebooks have built-in video cameras? Seems an idea worth having other than as a novelty.) Right now, the effect (if done in near-real time on a middle-class budget) would be a lot like the old Quicktime postage stamp movies, since the Good Stuff in the way of cameras, mics, editing programs and the requisite computer platform would cost way too much to look professional, but look 3 and 10 years down the road ...
... Solaris? Bueller?). Fine print (maybe a placard you walk past in line on the way into the ballpark, or on the ticket you buy) that says you can't even narrate over a cell phone to a friend what you're seeing from the stadium seats. No contract, though there is (arguably meaningful) consent: you could decide not to attend the game, or not to buy the DVD, etc. The music industry doesn't want you to rip your CDs and listen to them other than from the original media, Jamie Kellner doesn't want you skipping commercials, etc etc ;)
... maybe soon DVDs really *will* carry a shrinkwrap license that says by purchasing you agree not to play the contained movie except on sanctioned equipment. [I'm not talking about re-selling unauthorized copies or arranging free local showings for admissions -- just *watching* them, say, on a computer running Debian.] CDs would carry licenses that say "This product may only legally be played three times before self-destructing. Attempts to prolong the life of the music it contains is a prosecutable offense under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Bummer about fair use, ha ha."
However, it's a bit like buying a DVD (and finding no legal way at present -- someone correct me if that's no longer true -- to view its content on other than an annointed operating system (Mac OS or OS X, Windows
What's worse than the present situation (where so many hidden and esoteric rules hold sway) is even worse to my mind: I forsee an increasing flood of fine-print, sir-don't-worry-about-these-technicalities, but BOY do we have some technicalities to go through before you can eat here / walk through the museum / sketch trees in the park / take note of the fine and copyrighted smells in our greenhouse. More formal "licenses" not just on software, but everywhere, minor Gotchas which don't just prohibit illegal for-profit exploitation of copyrighted works, but ever more of the *normal* things which common sense currently holds to be among the rights of customers
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
IMO the MLB tv blackout rules are an anachronism of a bygone era.
Besides preventing national broadcasts from competing with local broadcasts (which is arguably a "good thing") they also force fans who live outside the broadcast/must-carry range of the local station to pay outrageous Pay Per View charges to watch their favorite team.
If I was a bad citizen, I'd consider modifying my sattellite TV receiver to allow me to get out of market local channels as locals... Not that I would ever do that, of course.
Who did what now?
Since we're in different towns, and both signing up for this service, if I proxy it for you and you for me we've both got total coverage. I'm perfectly happy to connect to you for this through ipsec. They'll never know.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The CART ChampCar World Series has a really nice feature on their website that lets you watch all their races for free. The catch is that they don't put them up until 5 days after the race is brodcast on CBS or SpeedTV, but it's still nice to be able to actually watch the race for those of us without cable. No ads, either.
It's just really cool to see a sport actually doing sometihng for the fans and not just as a cash grab.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
... next I hope they start doing this for sports.
-pyrrho
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.
It isnt for the PS2 so you may not be able to use it, but the best Baseball game on the Market is Diamond Mind Baseball.
http://www.diamond-mind.com/index.html
However, It is a Simulator, you only control decisions, not actual swinging/fielding/pitching.
Their Previous Season disks cover an awful lot of team, almost all the Best Teams in history, as well as complete seasons.
Otherwise, you may look for some ancient Warez Version of Earl Weaver Baseball for the PC. That had historical players as far as I can remember.
Unfortunately, most of the recent Console Baseball Games have been crap. I am still looking for a Good one on PS2.
However, MLB plans to go on strike after the third game, thus reducing the total number of webcast games.
Since so little actually happens in a baseball game, the compression ratio should be pretty nice, meaning low bandwidth requirements.... cool. :)
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
WWE already webcasts their pay-per-views, and while NASCAR doesn't do webcasts, you can access telemetry from all the cars in the Winston Cup races, and see a ton of real-time data on the races while you watch it on FOX (or ABC later in the season) using their TrackPass site features.
I'm not particularly excited that MLB is doing it. It sounds to me like another desperate ploy to get fans back after they abused us with their "I deserve more money even though I have enough $100 bills lying around to wipe my ass with for the rest of my life" spoiled rich boy player strikes.
Forget baseball -- NASCAR is the new national pastime.
evil adrian
I've always thought that sports such as Baseball and cricket would be the ideal choices to initiate web broadcasts. Mainly because the majority of action takes place on a (relatively) static screen, and so could presumably be reasonably well compressed compared to faster moving games(in terms of both the sport and the camera sweeps used) such as basketball or soccer.
Only if you are using Windows since the NFL (and college sports via Yahoo) streams only work in Windows Media Player. If you are using Linux you are SOL. There is no RealPlayer feed AFAIK.
:-)
I've never been able to get WMP streams to work in Linux MPlayer. Oh, well, there's always the sports bar.
Microsoft's VP of Customer Service is Helen Waite. If you are having problems with their products go to Helen Waite.