Connecting the Dots / An Agency Blog

Today, just like every other early spring for over a century, Major League Baseball will open yet another season of professional baseball. Men will take to the field in uniform, fans will fill the bleachers, hot dogs will be sold, and beer will flow. Much like it has since 1867. But just because MLB is mired in history and tradition doesn’t mean these guys aren’t leading the way in how we view real time events in the digital stratosphere.

With Opening Day celebrations taking place all over North America, so too launches one of the most sophisticated online video players to ever roll out onto computer screens. The new MLB.TV player has scrapped Microsoft’s Silverlight (MSFT) in favor of (ADBE) Adobe Flash for video, and once all the features are out of beta and running at full steam we’ll be able to watch hi-def streams with DVR functionality and multi-game views from the comfort of our computers.

It looks like there are some pretty intense blackout restrictions in place, though. For example, if you lived in the state of New York, Mets and Yankees games wouldn’t be available. But this staunch iron fist ruling that the MLB governs its rights with is part of the reason why they are so successful at getting people to pay for online content. Half a million people payed $120 dollars each to watch baseball online last year, and the revenues continue to bulge.

While it looks like the new MLB.TV player is just another sure footed step towards the eventual demise of traditional TV, there are still some pretty cool and cheaper products that MLB is offering so that we can enjoy the pastime of summer anywhere. Like a basic audio subscription that allows you to listen to any team’s official announcer in real time, or on demand. And the Adobe Flash based GameDay application that allows you to see in-browser representations of baseball interspersed with video highlights. Every minute detail is recorded in GameDay, from real time player stats, field positions, pitch locations, even the weather and wind speed. It’s one of the most intense online representations of something IRL, and now both these products are offered to mobile phone users for a small monthly fee so you can take the park anywhere.

It’s kind of amazing to think about one swing of a bat on a diamond of grass reverberating throughout the world on a multitude of technological platforms. Personally, I still like to stick to the $15.00 a year audio subscription that has offered up some pretty entertaining moments while I am at work. I’m not even really all that into baseball, for me it’s about the metered voice and play by play of a seasoned announcer.

If you’re reading this blog, it’s likely you spend quite a bit of time on a computer and I can’t recommend enough how nice it can be to take a break from iTunes to drop in on a historic ball park like Wrigley Field and listen in on the crack of bats, the idle chatter of 50 000 people interspersed with the sound of an old school pipe organ rocking B.T.O., and vendors calling out to the crowd for hot food and cold drinks. Sometimes, if you can’t be there, the sound of summer is the next best thing to actual summer. Internet, I love you.

Here’s to a great season. See you at the park. Oh, and GO CUBS!

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