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Is Major League Baseball the Model of a New Media Entertainment Company?

posted by Lee, on February 19th, 2009 at 05:24 pm, in category Uncategorized

Shawn made some compelling points today that Major League Baseball is an excellent example of a new media entertainment company. Its TV product (like all sports) is Tivo-Proof (most people won’t DVR a game), so there’s no skipping of commercials. When and if cable dies at the hands of Internet TV, MLB’s has the market power to sell/stream it directly to consumers over the Internet. And of course its live events are piracy proof cash generators.

Of course MLB still has a long way to go before they become a truly digital-friendly company. But its interesting to think that one of the oldest media companies may have one of the most future-proof business model.


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  1. on February 19th at 07:12 pm
    Matt said:

    Maybe it’s just me–but I’ve found that sports feeds are heavily pirated on streaming TV sties because MLB/NBA/NFL do not provide a reasonably solution (i.e., Hulu) for users that do have cable TV. In short, old-media baseball still has a long way to go.

  2. on February 28th at 10:28 am
    pr said:

    Wrong on one point: sports are the perfect thing to TiVo. Start recording when the game does, but don’t start watching until it’s about an hour in. Watch the game, but fast forward through the commercials. By the time you catch up the game is about over, so you can watch it in real time. As the broadcasters keep making the commercial breaks longer and longer and inserting more for no reason, it’s about the only way to keep your mind from wandering away while watching a sporting event.

  3. on March 5th at 05:57 pm
    Shawn said:

    I don’t entirely disagree with you. But far less people watch sports in this way than they do other shows, so for the broadcasters’ sake, sports has a huge advantage. The other point that’s important to remember is that when the games are shown online, you may not be able to DVR it, but people will still undoubtedly watch.