Although I think about this all the time, I got set off on this ironically by something on Twitter. to have the head of MLB’s advanced media on his podcast to explain their “media strategy”. This was after MLBAM apparently removed a video of a NESN reporter choking on a sandwich for some reason or another.
I’ve gripped about this quite often. MLB has had the worst internet presence and social media strategy in sports for years now. Most egregiously, they’re the only sport that has forbidden any highlights from appearing on Youtube whatsoever. So while I can watch highlights of the 2000 Masters, see an entire replay of the last drive of the 2008 super bowl or watch the 4th quarter of game 4 of the 1984 NBA Finals, I can’t watch Derek Jeter pass Lou Gehrig as the all time Yankee hits leader or Barry Bonds break the homerun record. The NBA has allowed Youtube content for years now and it leads to excellent ideas like Sebastian Pruiti’s, who breaks down and diagrams NBA plays every night and then shares them on his blog the next day. MLB is kind enough to allow fans with grainy cell phone videos to remain on Youtube though, so there’s always that. Hey, anytime you can make it as difficult as possible for the fans of your sport to enjoy seminal moments from its history, you gotta do that, right?
For me, this goes beyond their ridiculous internet strategy. And no, I’m not even going to get into the inanity of the blackout restrictions that everyone detests. Anyone remember suffering through the beginning of MLB.TV? As someone who hasn’t regularly lived in the New York area since 2004, I’ve been witness to how painful the birth of that product was. It took a few years for them to iron out the kinks. Baseball does deserve credit for blazing the path on broadcasting games on the internet. It was one of the first major sports to do so. The product wasn’t particularly well handled though, especially considering that HD NCAA games were broadcasted, for free, seamlessly on the internet years ago. The same is true with several major golf and tennis tournaments including the Masters. Even ESPN3 has run relatively smoothly from its launch.
I’ve said plenty of times that I think Bud Selig is the worst sports commissioner. From the way young players are utilized and marketed to his stubborn refusal to adopt a real instant replay system, Bud seems trenchantly stuck in the past. The NBA gets a lot of praise for having a great social media strategy and I think they deserve it. Here’s a great quote from their social media director:
“NBA Digital’s mantra is to provide fans with the content they want, when and where they want it, so we always start by asking: how will this enhance the fan’s experience, what are their needs? Where do they want content? Once we answer those questions we can determine our plan.”
Or how about this one from their vice president of marketing:
“Our fans are active on multiple social media networks and we want to continue to communicate with them directly and provide them with NBA content in their favorite spaces.”
Wouldn’t that be nice to hear from anyone involved with running baseball? A byproduct of their aggressive social media policy is the fact that they lead the sports league in Twitter followers, Facebook followers and Youtube subscribers. Considering that the NBA is usually pegged as the 3rd most popular sport in the US behind baseball, that’s not as easily dismissible as it once was. Two years ago they were streaming the all-star game live from TNT’s website, connecting it to Facebook feeds and Twitter users. Twitter recorded more than 185,000 tweets per minute during game 7 of the NBA Finals this past year. The NBA was actually paying to have trending twitter topics during last summer’s free agency. Instead of having a sponsored topic like, NBA Free Agency, they piggy backed all of the major free agent names, LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Amare Stoudemire etc to drum up additional page views and attention. (The NBA’s media strategy is a much discussed topic- here’s a good primer).
My whole point here is that there’s plenty more MLB could be doing in order to push the sport. Again, I want it to grow as should everyone else. Wouldn’t it be great to have something like this for one of MLB’s best players? (I recommend reading about the mosiac and how it was integrated during the NBA’s all-star weekend, another event which the NBA is leading the field with). This even relates back to the post I had about the declining rate of youth baseball players. Young kids interested in the NBA’s history don’t have to read a book about it- they can Youtube hundreds of different or highlight films (that are all user generated by the way). Try finding some decent Ken Griffey Jr. highlights on the internet.
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Awesome post. The blackout restrictions are really absurd. It may not be simple, but I am certain they could negotiate with local affiliates to provide in-market games for a fee. The users now want content in certain ways (on computer/phone/iPad), and MLB refuses to deliver it to them.
Some teams, like the Yankees and Padres, have been able to provide in game games for a fee, but in both cases, the cable provider is involved. If games were simply made available on MLB.TV, cable providers would be less willing to pay higher carriage fees, which would hurt RSNs. Similarly, lower ratings would eat away at ad rates. Combined, these two trends would either lead to lower rights fees or put a dent in the bottom line of team-owned RSNs.
Baseball has been the most proactive sport in terms of expanding distribution, so it seems unfair to criticize the sport for restrictions that in some ways have made this expansion possible.
I think there are two things at issue here. One is the amount of content provided, which as you note, MLBAM is actually ahead of the field. MLB.tv was the first of its kind, is easy to use, and provides more content than you can get in any other sport.
However, the second issue is the delivery of content in the way that users want to consume it, and I think that MLB is behind in that regard, which is why I agree with Sean in that area. The blackout rule is the most egregious example, but the inability to utilize their highlights anywhere but on the MLB site is another striking illustration of that point, as is their charging a fee for premium MLB.tv and then a separate fee for their apps which provide the exact same content on another device. MLBAM’s strategy seems to be “here is our content, consume it as we want you to” as opposed to “we have all this content, how can we get it to you in the most convenient manner for you, our customer/user.”
As for the blackout rules specifically, I agree that it would be complicated to hash out an agreement in that area, but complication shouldn’t mean that it should just be left untouched. This (the web) is the direction that media consumption is headed, and baseball needs to get ahead of that wave.
Oh, and William, welcome back.
The blackouts drive me crazy. I’m about to graduate from college in the Boston area and have to find random streams for almost every Yanks-Sox game, unless it’s on Fox, because my college doesn’t allow cable. I got so annoyed this weekend that I ended up going to Fenway Sunday night. Not sure about if it was worth shelling out 80 bucks to see Beckett 2-hit us. I blame MLB.TV blackouts for the beers my Tino jersey had to dodge, 100 percent.
Couldn’t. Agree. More.
Great post all-around.
Some of the social media points have merit, but I really disagree with the overall theme that baseball has a relatively poor internet presence and MLBAM has an undefined strategy.
Just months ago, a private equity firm offered over $1 billion for a piece of MLBAM, and many analysts think an IPO could raise multiples of that amount. In the meantime, MLBAM remains a cash cow for baseball, paying each team considerable dividends and providing an almost immediate return on investment.
It’s also interesting that you brought up NCAA games on the net and ESPN3 because MLBAM provides the infrastructure for both. It’s further worth noting that MLB.com traffic dwarfs NBA.com.
I realize that the blackout rules are very frustrating, but eliminating them is too simplistic. A large percentage of baseball’s revenue is derived from local RSNs, who could see viewership declines if the blackouts were lifted. It doesn’t make sense to shift local games from cable, which is easy to monetize, to the internet, which is still kind of tricky when it comes to determining ratings. Also, the only reason games can be available over the internet is because local RSNs have a financial incentive to broadcast every game. I doubt MLB wants to assume the costs associated with broadcasting a significant portion of its own games, at least not until it can easily create more revenue by doing so.
Finally, it’s not fair to say MLBAM is unwilling to discuss its strategy. A few years ago, Maury Brown had an interview with Bob Bowman (see link below). With all due respect to Bill Simmons, MLBAM doesn’t have to answer to him.
Well Will I never said that MLBAM is a poorly constructed financial machine. I’m saying that for fans, the way that it’s run compared to the NBA and the NFL makes it worse. Undoubtedly they make boat loads of cash. It makes total sense for them to keep it this way because they can make the most money. It makes total sense for a monopoly to continue running as a monopoly if their only object is to make money. Why would they change?
They’re still doing a poor overall job of marketing their brand to the casual fan which is a real issue. Making money for owners and teams is great but some sort of concession to the consumer would also be great. The point of my post wasn’t really to delve into how to make the most money.
You make many valid points, but I think on the whole, MLBAM is “fan friendly” because it has facilitated an unprecedented content explosion. Although it would be nice to watch baseball clips on youtube, for example, I think that’s really a minor concern. As a big baseball fan, I think MLB.com and it’s related services are a boon, and think the volume of content available overrides the fact that some of it is restricted to the league’s website.
Also, why do you think MLBAM is doing a poor job marketing its brand to the casual fan? You could be right, but what brings you that conclusion? I guess I tend to belive that if a company is doing very well financially, its marketing can’t really be poor.
It’s not MLBAM doing a poor job, it’s baseball. Look the only thing I said in my post was that MLBAM was kind of shitty. And thats fine, because it doesn’t have to be great, they have a monopoly on the content and can do it anyway that they wish. There have been a ton of problems for years with how they’ve provided that content, namely MLB.TV. It’s been better the past two years tho, that’s undeniable.
It’s not fan friendly because its hard to find the content. I can’t easily look up highlights of the games past great players. I don’t see it as a minor concern, I just see it as another piece of evidence that baseball is behind in keeping with how to best expand its internet presence. It’s ridiculously easy to enjoy in the NBA’s history- its all readily available at the click of a button. Ditto the NFL. It’s not at all that way for baseball.
Fewer young people are playing baseball, they don’t have the international allure the NBA does and their best players aren’t marketed in the way the NFL and NBA players are. That’s all okay, but I don’t see any reason why this should be so. Its the 2nd most popular US sport. They’re missing out on a ton of endorsement money and apparel deals the NBA and NFL rakes in. Additionally, by not marketing their younger players, it adds to the declining rate of youth participation. They’re not just losing out on the inner-city kids anymore; little league rates have been declining for 10 years now.
It’s great that MLB is making money. That was never the object of this post though. The other leagues all are expanding their fan bases and media presence online. Baseball has not done that as well as its capable of.
I won’t belabor the point much further because there are a lot of nebulous parts of this discussion and you raised some valid points. However, I am not sure what basis you have for many of your conclusions.
What I know is MLBAM is enormously successful, so much so that it attracts regular offers from private equity firms. I also know that in season, MLB.com is one of the most widely viewed sports websites (as many as 60 million uniques per month) and ranks on par with ESPN.com in terms of video viewers (7.8mn to 7.79mn, based on May 2010 Nielsen data). Maybe that would still be the case if baseball allowed youtube to run its videos, but maybe it wouldn’t? There ae definitely merits to MLBAM’s media strategy, so I don’t think you can simply trumpet the NBA because its videos are available on youtube.
In addition to MLB.com, the At Bat app is one of the most popular. In 2010, it was Apple’s top grosser. Every MLB tema also has a presence on Facebook and Twitter. In so many respects, baseball’s internet presence is both popular and financially successful. I think that provides evidence that baseball is doing a good job “expanding its fan bases and media presence online”. Maybe there are some things it could do better, but saying “MLBAM was kind of shitty” would seem to require some kind of evidence (unless you simply mean that as a personal opinion).expanding
Well again, I’m not talking about how much money it makes. That’s not the point. And again, I’m not talking specifically about MLBAM and never was. It’s not just about money. So thats why when the social media experts all rave about how the NBA operates in comparison to MLB and even the NFL, it has merit.
MLB’s facebook and twitter presence are less popular than all of the other major sports. And by MLBAM being “kind of shitty” in my post I was JUST talking about MLB.TV and their service.
I appreciated the article and I especially think that MLB needs to rethink it’s blackout areas. I live in upstate NY, a 3 hour drive from Yankee Stadium and unless I subscribe to the YES network on DirecTV only, the only video I get is if the powers that be on MLB and ESPN deem the game open to the home market. My poor wife has to constantly hear me ask the question: Why does MLB think it is a good idea to keep fans from watching the games? This is what’s so frustrating. Do they honestly think that people who live nearly 200 miles from the Bronx are going to be frequent attenders at the games and therefore lose the ticket revenue if they show the game that close to home? I wish someone would enlighten me on this.
I actually called MLB.TV last year to see about getting live games on my computer. I was told that yes, of course I could!….subject to blackout restrictions, which upon further investigation revealed that nearly all of the Yankees home games and most of their away games are subject to blackout in my area (Western Catskill Region of NY). So I expanded the search as if I were living in Syracuse, or Rochester, or Buffalo….sorry pal, those areas were included in the blackout zone.
My thinking on this has more to do with population concentrations over a strict distance limit. It seems to me that most Yankees fans that attend games regularly live a whole lot closer to the Stadium than 200 miles. For the huge markets like in the east, why not shrink the blackout area and let the fans in the further reaches of the local TV market have access to the games?
Having said all that I grew up listening to baseball on the radio and listening to John and Suzy is not very hard to take, it would just be nice to be able to watch the games live from time to time.
The issue isn’t about attendance, but protecting the value of one of baseball’s most lucrative assets: local television rights. If the blackout was restricted, the value of those rights would go down because the entities that pay them would have a lesser ability to capture viewers. Your case is a perfect example…by forcing you get DirectTV, YES can ask for a higher a fee from the provider and the Yankees can ask YES (which does pay a fee to the Yankees) for a higher rights fee.
My problem with the MLB.tv blackout is that you have people like me – fans willing to pay for the product but can’t buy it because they have to protect the RSN and its ad revenue (and won’t get cable). This is despite the fact that i would (or could if mlb.tv aired then) be watching commericals between innings. I think the problem comes down to tracking usage to make sure the RSN’s can get an accurate count for advertisers. I know technology will solve this issue soon, but perhaps a solution is to allow the RSN’s to sell the rights to the game directly to end users as opposed to MLB controlling distribution – i.e. I would pay YES $x for the season to watch the games they stream – they would know how many suscribers sign up for the service and they would air their ads (or maybe targeted ads for internet users whatever maximizes revenue). Simply put, if the issue is protecting the RSN the solution should be putting the RSN in charge of distributing the product, or at least distributing the product within the range that is blacked out from MLB.TV. The demand is there for people like me to buy the product and the product already exists, its time smart people capitalize and take the money i want to pay and let me watch Yankee games on my internet devices.
Until the RSN can make more money directly from consumers than it can from cable/satellite providers, this arrangement still wouldn’t work. The Yankees and Padres have been able to reach deals with certain cable providers to make in market games available over the internet, but those services not only come at a price, but also require that the customer also subscribe to the cable provider.
Again just to clarify, my post wasn’t so much about the blackout restrictions (which are awful and a pain in the ass) or that the MLBAM strategy is an inefficient money machine. No one denies they’re making a ton of money.
That’s not what it should be about however. It should be about growing and expanding the game. It should be about making money WHILE making it easy for fans and consumers to consume their product. Yes MLBAM pioneered the technology to broadcast games on the internet. The NBA has that now too (I particularly like how they offer a subscription where you can chose unlimited league pass, a pass for just your team or a pass to watch 7 teams). And while MLBAM makes a ton from the way it’s run, the other side of the coin is how much the endorsement and marketing deals the NBA has (Which you should remember is a complete global machine- Europe, Asia, etc).
The bigger problem is that they are preventing the future fans of the sport from actually watching it. Kids can’t go to YouTube to share clips of their favorite players. I can’t show them Robin Ventura’s Grand Slam single from before they were born.
Why did Blake Griffin become so popular this year? From the video clips that were available INSTANTLY after the game happened, that fans could share with friends on their Facebook or Twitter or email or blog.
Nevermind postseason games that don’t start until 8:30pm. This is why kids don’t give a crap about baseball.
You can show them the Ventura clip. It’s right here:
I generally agree with the youtube point…MLB.com should have its own channel. It should also allow blogs to embed its links. There are ways it could loosen restrictions on content. Having said that, MLB.com is very popular, so you have to weigh the lost traffic that would result if the website ceded content to third parties.
Having said that, it’s worth noting that NBA ratings aren’t strong, so if people really are consuming the game on the youtube, maybe that speaks to the general weakness of the game (i.e., it is being reduced to a sport in which the highlights trump the game itself).
Also, there was only one game in the 2010 baseball postseason that started after 8:20 in the market it was scheduled. Further, there were several day games. so there are plenty of opportunities for kids to watch.
ESPN3 and I assume you’re talking about CBS Sports doing the HD March Madness games both run off of MLBAM’s back end infrastructure. MLB created everything they use to make that system run well.
Also, Blackouts are the local media providers not wanting to give MLBAM the rights to the game, and MLBAM doesn’t have them for lack of trying.
Youtube I agree with you on, but you’re way off base with the rest of this post.
MLB is so far behind the times with regard to the Web that it’s almost enough to make you stop supporting baseball. They simply don’t understand the norms of new media. As long as they try to bend new media to their will, they will fail.
Okay, so far I’ve been pretty nice. The truth is: These guys are IDIOTS. I hate the thought that baseball is crippled by such utter morons — although with Bud Selig as commissioner, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me.
Thank God for the beauty of the game, because it keeps so many of us around when baseball’s establishment is apparently on drugs. At some point, however, I’ll find a way to love football, basketball, or hockey more if these baseball boobs don’t get with the program.
Appalling, silly little men who should be run out of the game — dumb, dumb, very dumb.