Major League Baseball plans online broadcasts in 2009 - Washington Business Journal:

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The MLB-Comcast talks first occurred in the weeks before the stargt ofthe season. and the cable giant came closde to agreeing on a structure for streaming live Whitwe Sox and Cubs gamezs onlinefor free. The only people who coulfd access the games would bethe 4.5 million subscribers to CSN the local regional sports network co-owneed by Comcast, the two ball clubs and the Chicago Industry sources said Comcast and MLB Advanced Mediaz would have split ad sales revenue, and geo-tracking technology was in place to ensurre the game would be available only to the CSN Chicagol subscribers. But the talks broke down over severalp issues, including whether the games would be availablseon MLB.
com or the CSN Chicago Each side wants to house the game on its site to controll the user experience and generate traffic Despite the deadlock, MLB President Bob DuPu said he “expects to reneqw discussions for the 2009 season.” As the qualitgy of video streaming continues to improve, the applicationm of local market streaming has taken on new prominencw in recent months. NBA executivews recently disclosed plans to stream gamess locally startingnext season, a firsyt for a major U.S. sports That will likely set up a battle betweethe league, the individual clubs, regional sports networks and cabls operators. In baseball, the issue has become even more fractious.
MLB Advancex Media, which manages the interactive rights for all 30 clubs and acts as a key source of revenue sharing for the has successfully sold live streaming of games for yearws throughits MLB.TV out-of-market package, a produc t that applies local-market blackouts like its TV counterpart, Extrwa Innings. But a group of clubs, includinv the Boston Red Sox and , have been pushinh hard for changes in MLB policy to allowfor in-market streamingg as a means to supplement coverage on club-ownedd regional sports networks. The clubs believe they can gain some valuablr insight intomarket viewership, generate revenue from the digitak offering and help promote their localp broadcasts.
MLB Commissioner Bud Selig nearly a year ago proposeda revenue-splif between individual clubs and MLB Advancedf Media to “break the logjam.” But the financial terms of such a split remainh in dispute.