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Major League Baseball Releases Webcasting Plans 261

Posted by chrisd from the bring-back-the-mbone dept.
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!"
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Major League Baseball Releases Webcasting Plans More

Major League Baseball Releases Webcasting Plans

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  • Proxy (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bradams ( 241228 ) <slashdot1&mynetpad,com> on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:09PM (#5499553) Homepage
    I wonder how they will deal with viewers via proxy?

    • that comment was not... (Score:5, Funny)

      by kingkade ( 584184 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:13PM (#5499568)
      ...posted with the expressed, written conscent nor implied oral conscent of major league baseball. Cease and desist!

    • Re:Proxy (Score:5, Informative)

      by jonblaze ( 140753 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:16PM (#5499586)
      According to the article, they will check the Quova results against the zip code for the credit card you provide to them. If there's a discrepancy, they will call you.

      And, if you're caught intentionally trying to circumvent the system, your credit card will automatically be charged $100.

      • Re:Proxy (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tolchz ( 19162 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:43PM (#5499751) Homepage
        Where do companies get off thinking that they can be judge, jury, and executioner ?

        I wonder what Visa will do when you dispute a $100 charge on your credit card.
        • It's called freedom of contract, buddy. If you don't like it don't sign up at their site.

        • Re:Proxy (Score:5, Funny)

          by Pathwalker ( 103 ) <hotgrits@yourpants.net> on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:55PM (#5499814) Homepage Journal
          I wonder what Visa will do when you dispute a $100 charge on your credit card.

          After you dispute the charge, MLB sends some "Customer Service Technicians" over to your house to give you a personal "Batting Demonstration" as part of the process to make sure that you are being "Serviced" to the extent that they wish.
        • Where do companies get off thinking that they can be judge, jury, and executioner ?

          By you agreeing to the terms of service. If you don't like the terms of service, express you dislike to MLB or simply don't use their service.

          -Bill
        • Since you signed or consented to the contract which stated they were.

        • Re:Proxy (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Tailhook ( 98486 )
          "Where do companies get off thinking that they can be judge, jury, and executioner?"

          So you have to watch it for free on the old fashioned tube if you're local. How tragic.

          Cut them a break. They have long standing contractual obligations to the affiliates. The alternative is to change nothing. Instead, they've arranged it so that this can happen despite the existing contracts. That's admirable. It opens the door to greater things.

          Imagine if this is actually successful. Baseball (tm) might discover
      • Actually, what happens if I am travelling and want to check a webcast since the local (to where I am) is really foreign??? They will check my CC and see it has a local (to the game) zip code yet I am traveling and have a foreign (to the game) IP?

        Hmmm....
        Bud didn't think of that, now did he...

  • Oblligatory joke for baseball fans... (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheFrood ( 163934 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:11PM (#5499557) Homepage Journal
    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

  • Well, that's stupid. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by sulli ( 195030 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:12PM (#5499559) Journal
    So I can watch all the other teams, but can't watch my own? And they expect me to pay eighty bucks for that precisely why?

    Blooming, blithering, drivelling, sputtering, drooling morons. But this is what we have come to expect from Bud Selig, unfortunately.

    • Because you're a fan of baseball in general, or moved from your home town?

      And because your own team is on free-to-air TV in full motion, instead of some jerky lo-res webcast?

      And because it's much cheaper than the MLB/NHL/NFL packages services like DirecTV have?

      • Re:Well, that's stupid. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by sulli ( 195030 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:23PM (#5499639) Journal
        Right. But a webcast of home games would be very useful on (for example) a work PC. And not every game is free-to-air - most local games are on Fox Sports Net, a cable channel.

        I think they wasted a ton of effort to do the geographic limitation. Why bother? Yes, broadcasters paid for exclusive tv rights, but this is a different medium. Getting people to pay for webcasts must surely be nothing but new revenue.

      • Re:Well, that's stupid. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Lawbeefaroni ( 246892 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @11:11PM (#5500144) Homepage
        Don't underestimate the money and eyeballs involved in fantasy baseball. Fanatics will watch practically any game they can to see their or their prospective players play. This is precisely why you (well, not the parent on top, but someone) might want to watch games besides the hometeam's.

        People happily pay $80 season just for a service [rotonews.com] that gives you [freely available] stats and tells you their opinion of who is good and who isn't. Being able to catch the occasional game to do some "scouting" would probably be worth just as much.

        And, as amazing as it might sound, some people actually enjoy watching more than one team's games.

    • Because baseball is still, ultimately, a business. Webcasting games in a local area will devalue the OTA/cable broadcasting rights.

      I don't think the webcasters will be able to carry the local network's commercials, so if viewers in the local area can bypass ads by subscribing to the webcast, then the networks will get less money for each advertising block. This, in turn, will reduce the amount of money that each team can get for its local broadcasting rights.

      • Business (Re:Well, that's stupid) (Score:4, Insightful)

        by slouie ( 8781 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @10:03PM (#5499854)
        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."

    • Want to watch your home team? Go buy a ticket, you bum. Honestly, if the game is sold out, there's no blackout. If there are still tickets available, go buy one if you want to see the home game. If you want to see your team at an away game...ta-da! Welcome to MLB.TV! I mean, really, it's not that bad...and for those of us who are also sports geeks (a rare and deadly combination), then this is a great way to keep up on our fantasy baseball players when they're all over the majors.
      • I have tix to 15 Giants games this year, ya bum!

        Seriously, the problem is the contract arrangements described by another poster. You'd think, though, that MLB would find some way to share those eighty dollars a year with the teams.

        As for blackout rules on sellouts, you're confusing MLB with the NFL. There, games not sold out are blacked out locally (also a dumbass rule IMHO). In baseball, the local teams get cable contracts & revenue (except the Expos, who need to move to Washington, but I digress)

  • Come on... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:12PM (#5499564)
    As if anyone on Slashdot likes sports!

  • Foil hats... (Score:4, Funny)

    by pyrote ( 151588 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:13PM (#5499569) Journal
    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.

  • ObSimpsons Quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by Metallic Matty ( 579124 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:17PM (#5499596)
    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!"

  • effectiveness (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:20PM (#5499617)

    If the user-location service proves ineffective, what will the MLB do?

    • Denial "No, you can't see this webcast if you are from there, see what happens when I try?" "But what if --" "No, It works, there is no way around it."
    • Increased control attempts "Okay, now you can only view webcasts with our proprietary application while connected to our untamperable GPS receiver so we know where you are."
    • Eliminate webcasts Drop webcasts altogether
    • Eliminate blackout rules Yeah right
    • Make an exception "Webcast viewers get around the blackout rules, and we are okay with that"
    • CowboyNeal

    Speculation welcome

  • Commercial Free? (Score:5, Funny)

    by digital_milo ( 212475 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:20PM (#5499618)
    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!

  • They already Cover every pitch on the web.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by acomj ( 20611 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:21PM (#5499620) Homepage
    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

  • This is fucked up (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Lord Kestrel ( 91395 )
    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?

  • Bud Selig can bite me! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by imadork ( 226897 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:33PM (#5499696) Homepage
    Forget video on the web, what really steams me os the fact that they raised the prices of audio on the web again!.

    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.

    • Re:Bud Selig can bite me! (Score:4, Funny)

      by immanis ( 557955 ) <immanis.sfgoth@com> on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:48PM (#5499777) Homepage Journal

      ... I think a more likely explanation is that Baseball (indeed, all sports) are filled with greedy owners, spoiled players, and weak executives ...

      *gasp* You mean our beloved players don't play for the love of the game? The owners want _MONEY_? The executives are CLUELESS?!?!?

      I mean, no offense, but in what country is THAT news? "Professional Athletes, Owners are Spoiled, Want Money. Film at 11:00."

      FAR more interesting is re-reading your above line. Greedy owners, spoiled players, weak executives. Hell, it's no wonder it's America's passtime. It's a MICROCOSM for $DIETY's sake. With the Microsoft Yankees, the AOLTW A's, General Motors Giants, and let's not forget the Amway Cubs.

    • Worse than that, at least last year, you were required to use the RealOne player. I don't imagine that changed.

      The second time I got spammed with a pop-up window by RealOne, with no way to disable them, I called Real to cancel my MLB subscription.

      At least Real was prompt with the refund. Paying for it is one thing. Paying for it and getting spammed in return is unacceptable.

      • I listen to the games on Linux. As far as I can tell, the "community supported" RealPlayer isn't a RealOne player, and yet the games work.

        I'm on the fence as to whether to subscribe this year. If they changed things so you can't listen to he games on Linux, I ain't subscribing.

        Incidentally, I just found out by reading the FAQ that they are offering a $12 package that just includes games from your favorite team. I might just go this route, since I never listen to any other games. To get it, you need to reg

    • its not 100% effective (and could end at any time) but I can still find small (usually rural) stations who feed their unedited broadcast onto the web. I know for a fact of a station where I can get KC Royals games like this for free.

      I'm sure its against MLB rules, but these people never seem to have gotten the memo, or any sort of equipment to block out the game from their webcast
    • that sucks, you should switch to watching hockey. Every game (pretty sure every game) is audio-broadcast on nhl.com, both home and away radio (when available, it usually is, sometimes 2 different feeds [damned frenchies]) for free.

      iirc the commercial/tv timeouts are faded to nothing as well :]

      Unfortunately it's run by MSN, and likely requires IE/wmp... They have video too, but it's DRM'd and I've refused the updates. [pretty sure that's free too though]
    • It has a lot more to do with greedy star players than greedy owners. When one guy can command $300 MILLION dollars for a 5 year contract, yet scale for everyday players (just as necessary as the stars, if not more so) is what now, about $200k?? Well, that's the biggest point where the system is being skewed. If you want to draw fans, you hold your nose and pay the star what he wants, or he goes elsewhere when his contract is up -- because there's always some large-market team that can and will pay what he
      • So if ARod was making $75,000 a year, you think the owners would just reduce ticket prices, cable prices and webcast prices out of the goodness of their hearts?

        The owners charge what they charge in order to maximize their profits (or minimize their losses). Rest assured that they will continue to do that regardless of what they are paying the players.
  • At last, an opportunity to see my hometown Detroit Tigers more than once a year!"

    Isn't that more like a form of punishment?
  • 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...

  • Mlb website (Score:3, Funny)

    by arvindn ( 542080 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:36PM (#5499719) Homepage Journal
    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 ;^)

  • Don't forget.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:40PM (#5499739)
    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?

  • Block the Senators? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Chief Typist ( 110285 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:47PM (#5499769) Homepage
    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 [lycos.com] to block.

  • What I'd really want (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Darth_brooks ( 180756 ) <[clipper377] [at] [gmail.com]> on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:51PM (#5499790) Homepage
    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.
    • Agreed, Re: Ernie Harwell.

      I'm glad that Al Kaline is at least working for the team, even if he and Harwell are not broadcasting anymore. I actually haven't been able to listen to the games anymore since it changed from George Kell/Ernie Harwell/Al Kaline as announcers. To me, THEY were part of what made baseball so great... of course, the only memory I have of my father ever being genuinely obviously happy was when the 1984 Tigers just obliterated every other team that ever existed.
      But I was a Tigers fan right up from then until I grew up, got a job, and moved (actually moved TO Detroit.. but have only been to one game.. thankfully it was in Tiger Stadium.. I'm afraid of Comerica Park... lol) and haven't had time to pay attention to the Tigers, since I work in the day.

      Now it's the Red Wings, since I can catch them at work if necessary, and that's not usualyl since the games are almost always on after work hours.

      In any case, without those three announcing the pitches, I just turn the volume off of whatever game I happen to catch when I do catch a baseball game. I haven't found any other announcers that sound even close.

      My dad and I used to listen to the AM Radio in his old beat up pickup truck, and i could see the whole game as if it were playing on TV in my mind.. amazing.

  • The only way I'd go to an MLB game (Score:3, Funny)

    by leviramsey ( 248057 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:51PM (#5499792) Journal

    Is on "one free beer for everybody in the stands per player who tests positive for steroids night".

  • reply to article (Score:3, Interesting)

    by XO ( 250276 ) <blade.eric@NospAM.gmail.com> on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:51PM (#5499793) Homepage Journal
    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.

  • Double hit for the hacked (Score:3, Informative)

    by the-build-chicken ( 644253 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @09:54PM (#5499813)

    Anyone caught intentionally circumventing the system will be banned and fined $100, automatically charged to their credit cards, Bowman said.

    Great...so not only are viewers going to be kicked off their account by some 14 year old with a copy of Golden Eye, but they're going to be fined 100 bucks for the priviledge of being bruteforced.

  • I've already had bad experiences w/ MLB broadcasts (Score:5, Interesting)

    by stomv ( 80392 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @10:02PM (#5499851) Homepage
    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.

  • 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.

    • That's not true! There was a time period where this was the case BUT a "long time"?? No way.

      It was quickly realized that augmenting ticket sales with radio adverts helped pay the bills and the strategy was quickly adopted. There's always an initial hesitation to advances in technology in professional sports but I think the MLB has been fairly good about adopting technology rather quickly. There was certainly not a long period of time where the New York teams weren't on the radio.

  • 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 ...

    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 ... 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 ;)

    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 ... 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."

    timothy

  • 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.

    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.
    • IMO the MLB tv blackout rules are an anachronism of a bygone era.

      I completely agree. What fascinates me is that the league will complain about the precarious financial health of the sport, but they can't seem to adjust their broadcast/delivery scheme to actually collect money from those willing to pay. Why on earth would you ever black out an interested/paying customer?

      The webcasting blackout thing is yet another example of how mlb can't get it's act together on this. The product should be baseball,

  • I'll show you my proxy if you show yours (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wytcld ( 179112 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @10:49PM (#5500015) Homepage
    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.

  • Another way to go about webcasts (Score:5, Informative)

    by Space Coyote ( 413320 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @10:56PM (#5500059) Homepage
    The CART ChampCar World Series [cart.com] has a really nice feature on their website that lets you watch all their races for free [cart.com]. 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.

  • COOL!!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by pyrrho ( 167252 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @11:02PM (#5500096) Journal
    ... next I hope they start doing this for sports.

  • Minor league! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Bowling Moses ( 591924 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @11:04PM (#5500106) Journal
    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.
    • You want real damn baseball, you go to your hometown minor league club.

      Preach it.

      I've been a New York Mets fan for 20 years, but I've sworn off consciously giving any money to MLB in the wake of 1) the threatened strike and 2) the abusive strongarm bullshit [slashdot.org] that the Mets pulled on their most prominent fan site last summer.

      The New Jersey Jackals [jackals.com] play in a stadium 10 minutes from my house. Parking is $2 (Mets: $10). Box seats four rows off the third base line are $8 (Mets: N/A. Those seats aren't availabl
    • Or even a decent college team. When I lived in Santa Clarita CA, I'd go to the College of the Canyons games a couple times a week. Minor league even as college teams go, but well-coached, well-played, well-officiated, and every seat was FREE and right behind home plate.

      There was a kid at The Masters College who'd pitch the first game of a double header, then catch the second game without losing a step. Wonder what became of him? Helluva arm by any standards.

  • walkout (Score:2, Funny)

    by Natchswing ( 588534 )
    > Major League Baseball is planning to webcast 1,000 games this season.

    However, MLB plans to go on strike after the third game, thus reducing the total number of webcast games.

  • 162 games a piece (for the regular season), and 30 teams gives us 2430 games. So broadcasting 1000 games is about 41%. Not too bad, I'd say.

  • Low bandwidth requirements (Score:4, Funny)

    by osgeek ( 239988 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @11:25PM (#5500193) Homepage Journal
    Since so little actually happens in a baseball game, the compression ratio should be pretty nice, meaning low bandwidth requirements.... cool. :)
    • Seriously though, I've looked at their demo games and they expand to 1024x768 really nicely....

      Which gives me pause and concern about MLB's ability to keep up with bandwidth demands once the season is in full swing and they have big games like Red Sox vs. Yankees (which will be their first game online...I guess they want to stress test the system early).

      I've seen big guy's get slashdotted, like a 386 serving across a 56K modem, when they try and do something huge like streaming video service. Just look a

  • Webcasts (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Evil Adrian ( 253301 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @11:31PM (#5500215) Homepage
    WWE [wwe.com] already webcasts their pay-per-views, and while NASCAR [nascar.com] 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 [nascar.com] 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.

  • Baseball easy to compress? (Score:4, Informative)

    by frankthechicken ( 607647 ) on Wednesday March 12, 2003 @11:35PM (#5500237) Journal
    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.
  • Not only that, but this article also stinks.

    Check out the link here:
    http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sp orts/53 68622.htm

    Most teams will black out all games involving those in a fan's home market. But the Royals are one of three teams who will allow some of the normally blacked-out games to be shown to fans locally.
    Why pay for the MLB when the NFL is free?

    Sorry, gulp, drink | more beer.
    Enjoy

  • I just wanted to point out that you can also get the audio feed for every game in the nation for only $20/season. This isn't as big a deal for local games, but when you're following 22 fantasy players or your home team is on the road for a week, it's money fairly well spent.

    The NFL still offers these feeds for free..but I guess $20 isn't too bad for more than a thousand games. And the audio feeds go silent for commercials (since radio commericals are local feeds)...so you only hear the game, which is als
  • I'm kinda curious.... Are baseball live casts tech savvy? For a game like cricket, they have software that analyzes the performance of each player, they have the HAWKEYE - a system with 6 cameras which can predict the motion of the ball in 3d to a precision of 5mm...... do they have technical coverage to such an extent?
    Coming to webcasts, why not use a virtual broadcaster? ie a server can covert real-video to basic animation in real time.... which would take up lesser bandwidth. OR, why not conver the mo

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