MLB To Distribute Through MSFT, AOL

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This is a huge boost to online sports licensing rights market (as well as to MLB, of course): MLB has signed on Microsoft and America Online, as two of the primary providers of its baseball games online. Microsoft is expected to pay as much as $40 million over two years for the rights, reports News.com (Formal company statement with exact offering details here). Microsoft will receive exclusive rights to stream live video of most baseball games this season onto PCs…it will offer it through MSN Premium, a $9.95-a-month software package that offers Net services and content, and may also sell subscriptions through MSN.com. The baseball packages will be available here on MSN.

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AOL, meanwhile, has gone for a smaller deal: a two-year, $9 million deal with MLB Advanced Media, the league’s Web business, to offer live audio streams and 20-minute video clips for each game…

Besides the MSN and AOL deals, the baseball league will also sell these packages on its own website…

WSJ.com: The price tag…demonstrates MSN’s belief that it will have to offer attractive, exclusive content to convince broadband users — many of whom already shell out $30 to $40 or more per month for cable-modem or DSL access — to pay an extra fee for its offering.

In addition to the paid offerings, MSN will make limited baseball content available free on its site.

The TV Connection: The MSN deal could bring baseball’s streaming products onto television sets, writes WSJ. Microsoft said that later this year it would offer software and hardware that would allow users to easily watch live games on TV screens and archived games on hand-held devices.

Formal company statement: In the future, Microsoft and MLB.com will enable consumers to watch MLB games on their Portable Media Center devices.

You probably already know the whole mess with RealNetworks, but in case you need to refresh it, below are some links….

Related:

MLB Teams With Akamai

RealNetworks’ Suing MLB

MLB Throws High Heat At Web portals

RealNetworks, MLB Talks Dissolve; Will It Go With Yahoo?

RealNetworks To Stop Selling Standalone Sports Services

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