Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball has agreed to sell single-team streaming rights to fans across the country. The agreement came as part of a legal settlement on the day MLB was to stand trial for alleged antitrust violations.

Major League Baseball, which has previously taken a miserly approach to extending TV Everywhere rights to regional sports networks, is softening its stance just a bit on authenticated streaming.

It’s facile to suggest that football’s popularity is up and baseball’s is down because football stuck with broadcasting and baseball migrated to cable. Many other factors are surely involved. But I think the choice of medium has certainly been a factor, maybe a big one.

Local streaming is coming to many Major League Baseball markets next season, thanks to a breakthrough in the league’s long-running negotiations with Fox Sports. Several industry sources say the league is drafting deal documents with Fox, which holds the local media rights to 15 MLB teams. An agreement to offer authenticated local streaming of live games is expected to be in place by the start of the 2016 season.

Judge Shira Scheindlin said Thursday all fans with some appetite for watching hockey and baseball broadcasts are affected by league policies requiring consumers to buy all league games rather than just the games of one team or a few teams.

MLB Advance Media, Major League Baseball’s technology arm, could spin off  its streaming business, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The division powers the league’s MLB.tv, the WWE Network, Sony’s Playstation Vue and is set to be the base for HBO’s standalone streaming service. The league wants to keep control over the service, which could be valued at more than $5 billion. WSJ subscribers can read the full story here.

This week, more people watched NCIS: New Orleans and The Big Bang Theory, and — for that matter — The Walking Dead, the AMC show about zombies. The audience for Sunday Night Football, a regular season game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Denver Broncos, was almost twice that of the first two games of the series.

Television channels pay a lot for rights to cover games, and they don’t want to lose audiences to computers or mobile apps. As a result, fans who pay $20 or more a month for baseball’s online video package, MLB.TV, are blocked from games involving hometown teams.

The 55-year-old Manfred, who has worked for Major League Baseball in roles with ever-increasing authority since 1998, will take over from the 80-year-old Bud Selig on Jan. 25, 2015.

Disney boss Bob Iger is firmly in Major League Baseball’s potential lineup of new commissioner candidates, according to sources. The Disney chairman and CEO — who oversees ABC and ESPN as part of his role — is a favorite of the league’s succession committee, sources say, which is trying to find a replacement for Bud Selig before he steps down at the end of his contract Jan. 24.

A salute to opening day will start the effort, by BBDO New York, which will focus on young stars and how attending games can provide lifetime memories.

The sports league joins Comcast and DirecTV in demanding an end to a lawsuit alleging a conspiracy to keep out-of-market games priced high and in-market games off of the Internet.

MTV Networks and Major League Baseball said today they are collaborating on a weekly 30-episode series that melds pop culture and baseball. The untitled series will likely air on MTV2, which tends to have a higher proportion of male viewers than its sister station.

While we believe McCarver was actually forced out by the Foxies, it was still time for him to go. Not because he had lost his fearless approach or his uncanny ability to first-guess better than any TV analyst in any sport. And not because he had lost his enthusiasm for preparation. Or his curiosity, either. It was getting harder for Tim McCarver to be Tim McCarver.

HAVANA (AP) — Cubans got to watch something on their television screens this week that this baseball-crazed island hasn’t seen in more than half a century: a Major League Baseball […]

YouTube and Major League Baseball Advanced Media on Monday announced an expansion of their video distribution agreement. MLB’s increased offerings on its YouTube channel will include highlights of every game this season (on a two-day delay) and an archive of full games going back as far as 1952.

With Major League Baseball officially kicking off this week, let’s take a look at baseball’s first HD broadcast. In September 1997, MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said HD makes the viewer feel like they’re right at the park. Can you imagine what a 4K or 8K broadcast would feel like?

What is the biggest baseball brand? Look for the pinstripes among players in New York’s Bronx. The New York Yankees generated nearly $500 million in media value, according to social media researcher General Sentiment’s 2013 MLB Media Valuation Report. The Bronx Bombers produced almost three times the value than second-place Philadelphia Phillies, which registered $160 million.

Fox is in the leadoff position for a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar broadcast rights deal with Major League Baseball. Rival broadcaster CBS, which had talked to Turner Sports about a joint bid, is no longer interested. NBC put a bid on the table but came up short, sources say.

In TV rights negotiations, Fox has told Major League Baseball officials that it not only wants to renew its current rights, but also acquire those that Turner now holds, according to sources. Fox needs the extra games to implement plans to convert Speed into an all-sports network. Fox would continue to air league championship games and World Series on broadcast network. Fox is not alone in the bidding. Turner and NBC are in the game, too.

In TV rights negotiations with Major League Baseball, Fox has told MLB officials that it not only wants to renew the rights it has now, but also those that Turner has, according to sources. Fox’s wants to use the super-sized package of games to undergird plans to convert Speed into an all-sports network. Fox would continue to put league championship games and World Series on its broadcast network. Fox is not alone in the bidding for rights. Turner and NBC are still in the game.

Depending on how the rights negotiations play out, CBS could have baseball for the first time in almost two decades or Fox could acquire rights to even more games and use them to launch a cable sports channel that would look to challenge Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN.

At an average of $700 million a year, the new eight-year is twice as rich as the current deal. Major League Baseball now turns its attention to the rest of its media package, which includes Divisional playoff series, Championship playoff series and the World Series, as well as a Saturday Game of the Week.

TBS has gained exclusive television rights to the new American League and National League wild card playoff games this year and next, and the MLB Network will air postseason games for the first time, it was announced today.

Major League Baseball plans to revamp its divisions and playoff format with a series of moves that will have significant ramifications for at least two of its media partners — Fox and Turner Broadcasting — and millions of fans.

Major League Baseball and embattled Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt have agreed to a unique structure for the auction of one of the game’s most-storied franchises. Under a deal hammered out during two weeks of intense negotiations last month, MLB won’t oppose McCourt and his advisers’ efforts to solicit separate bids for the team and the future media rights to its games, according to people familiar with the talks.

The Texas Rangers and St. Louis Cardinals might be headed to the World Series, but the Philadelphia Phillies garnered the top local TV ratings in 2011. This season, nearly one-tenth of Philadelphia households — the most of any market — tuned in during regular season, locally televised Phillies games, and more than double (21.6%) of those households tuned in during the playoffs. Interestingly, half of the playoff teams were among the top 10 for household ratings for regular season, locally televised games and all three top teams made the playoffs.

Fox Sports’ coverage of the upcoming American League Championship Series will include six robotic cameras in the dugouts, an Inertia Unlimited xMo, two Sony HDC3300 super-slo-mos,a Steadicam and two RF units.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig vetoed a long-term media deal for the Los Angeles Dodgers on Monday, a move that could push the club into insolvency and set up a lengthy court battle between Selig and embattled Dodgers owner Frank McCourt.

Anheuser-Busch reached a new sponsorship agreement with Major League Baseball and dropped a suit it filed against the league in November.