MLB.com

Last updated
MLB.com
MLB.com logo.svg
Type of site
 Baseball
Headquarters Manhattan
Owner MLB Advanced Media ( Major League Baseball )
Created byMajor League Baseball
URL www.mlb.com
Launched1995
Current statusPublic

MLB.com is the official site of Major League Baseball and is overseen by Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P. (a subsidiary of MLB). MLB.com is a source of baseball-related information, including baseball news, statistics, and sports columns. MLB.com is also a commercial site, providing online streaming video and streaming audio broadcasts of all Major League Baseball games to paying subscribers, as well as "gameday", a near-live streaming box score of baseball games for free. In addition, MLB.com sells official baseball merchandise, allows users to buy tickets to baseball games, runs fantasy baseball leagues, and runs auctions of baseball memorabilia. In association with HB Studios, MLB.com has also developed recent R.B.I. Baseball installments.

Contents

MLB.tv

MLB.tv is an American subscription based audio and video service which through two different service tiers allows users to listen and watch HD quality out of market Major League Baseball games live via a high-speed Internet connection (subject to blackout restrictions). Currently users can subscribe to the "MLB.tv All Teams" package which access to every MLB teams live feeds as well as in-game highlights and stats and live DVR control, full game archives and pitch widget. The other option, the "MLB.tv Single Team" gives subscribers access to a single MLB team's live audio and video feeds (subject to blackout restrictions) as well as in-game highlights, stats and live DVR controls.

Previously MLB.tv services were offered as a "Basic" and "Premium" tiers with basic receiving only HD quality audio and video on their desktop or laptop devices whereas the Premium subscribers were given access to live game audio and video on desktop and laptop as well as on mobile devices such as Android or iOS devices through a free subscription to the At-Bat mobile app [1] and through certain connected devices including smart televisions, Blu-ray players, TiVo DVRs, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. [2] MLB.TV has since eliminated these restrictions and now users of both the "All Teams" and "Single Team" tier can share the same access including new access via an Amazon Fire TV, Google Chromecast and Roku devices.

Starting with the 2012 season MLB.TV Premium had begun a service called Audio Overlay which allows the user to replace the video's home or away audio with the audio feed from the home or away radio feed (Away team audio overlay is only available to MLB.TV Premium subscribers) or Park which removes all audio commentary and lets the viewer hear the ball park's natural sounds. [3] As with MLB's Extra Innings cable and satellite television service, normal blackout restrictions apply where applicable, see below. This service has since been discontinued starting with the new subscription tier.

MLB.tv Mosaic

A screenshot of the MLB.tv Premium experience from April 9, 2010 Mlb tv screenshot april 9 2010.jpg
A screenshot of the MLB.tv Premium experience from April 9, 2010

Mosaic was a downloadable program which provided features not available when streaming through a web browser. It was only available to subscribers of MLB.tv Premium. Live games were shown, and on-demand games available for a period of two days previous to the current date. Major League Baseball has not used MLB.tv Mosaic since the 2008 season.

Mosaic allowed you to show multiple games at once, and provided the following viewing modes:

When set on one main game, team information was shown to the right hand side of the game, including team line-ups, the boxscore, and team statistics. Users could also view their "player tracker", which would alert the user when a player in their chosen player list was active in a game.

Beginning with the 2009 season, Mosaic functionality was largely incorporated into the main viewing mode. Multiple-game viewing has been retained, with a choice of one, two side to side, two (one in the main window and one in a secondary 'picture in picture' mode), and four-game mode available.

MLB Big Inning

MLB Big Inning is a feature of MLB.tv, which presents whiparound coverage of MLB games that air on the MLB.tv service, including live action and highlights. The service was introduced in 2021, and airs every weeknight. [4] Alexa Datt is the host of the show. [5] The broadcast is occasionally simulcast on MLB Network.

The service is similar to the existing MLB Strike Zone service; both services air a similar whiparound format.

Blackout restrictions

MLB.com has been providing live and archived streaming video since the 2002 baseball season [6] with only audio available before that. MLB games in the United States, Canada, South Korea, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands are subject to blackout restrictions. In Guam all of the live Los Angeles Dodgers and Oakland A's games are blackout for the entire season. [7] Games are blacked out to all users within the theoretical home television territory assigned to each team, irrespective of whether local television stations carry local games of those teams. [8] Contractual stipulations with Fox and ESPN respectively mean that regular season Saturday games scheduled before 1900 EST (beginning 20 May 2006) and Sunday games scheduled after 17:00 EST are blacked out throughout the United States. During the post-season, all games are blacked out in the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands. In all other countries and territories, no exclusivity rights have been granted and MLB.com is able to broadcast all games. MLB Gameday Audio does not have blackout restrictions. [9]

Any game that is blacked out (for any reason) is made available as an archived game approximately 90 minutes after the conclusion of each game.

MLB.com can check a viewer's origin by using IP address information, but some users have reported inaccuracy of the ISP-based targeting used, thus leaving many fans unable to watch games on MLB.com. [10]

In-market broadcasts

During the 2023 season, as a result of bankruptcy proceedings involving Diamond Sports Group, MLB would acquire the local broadcast rights to the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks. [11] [12] MLB would opt to create bespoke streaming services to televise both teams' games, with simulcasts on local cable television providers, DirecTV, and FuboTV. [13] [14] Both arrangements would continue for the 2024 season, with the bespoke services being branded PADRES.TV and DBACKS.TV. [15] [16] In addition, MLB would also take over rights to the Colorado Rockies from 2024 onward after the discontinuation of their former outlet AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain, with coverage also continuing on local cable, DirecTV, and FuboTV. [17]

The in-market broadcasts are produced by MLB's local media division, with graphics produced by MLB Network. [18]

MLB.com At Bat

A screenshot of the MLB.com At Bat 2010 iPhone App scoreboard page At bat 2010.jpg
A screenshot of the MLB.com At Bat 2010 iPhone App scoreboard page

MLB.com At Bat was a mobile application available for different platforms including iOS (a universal app which works on iPhone and iPod Touch), iPadOS, Android, BlackBerry, and HP TouchPad/webOS. The iOS application featured "live audio, in-game video highlights, pitch-by-pitch live data and more." (Users may view live games if they log in with MLB.tv subscriptions.) The BlackBerry and Android application featured "real-time scores, live audio, in-game highlights and more." The application was free (although it required a subscription to MLB.TV to unlock its full functionality) and was available on the App Store, Google Play, and BlackBerry App World stores. [19] MLB distributes a new application for each season; the 2012 version was the first to be available free of charge. Later the app's functionality was integrated into the standard MLB app, and it has since been removed.

A social networking app, MLB Ballpark, is also available. The free app allows fans to view ballpark maps, post to assorted social networking sites (via 'checking in' when they attend games), and in some ballparks, order concessions directly from their mobile devices.

MLB.com Fantasy

MLB.com Fantasy has many games and simulations, including Beat the Streak. Beat the Streak is a game where a player is picked for each day, and if that player gets at least one hit, one's streak continues. The goal is to reach a 57-game streak (one more than Joe DiMaggio's famed 56-game streak), to win a grand total of $5.6 million. The contest has never had a winner in its 17-year history, despite some tweaks to make the goal more attainable. [20]

History

Major League Baseball's previous website was at www.MajorLeagueBaseball.com. The MLB.com domain name was originally registered in 1994 by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, a Philadelphia-based law firm. [21] In September 2000, Morgan Lewis & Bockius agreed to transfer the domain name to Major League Baseball. [22] The longer address remains as a redirect to MLB.com to prevent cybersquatting.

Customer service complaints

According to the Better Business Bureau: "Consumers previously reported to the BBB their subscriptions were automatically renewed with MLB Advanced Media even though they had cancelled their plans within the specified cancellation period. MLB Advanced Media has taken steps to address these concerns by adding more prominent disclosures and an opt-out feature." [23]

In 2009, opening week games were not available as archives, and users reported limited High Definition service available. [24]

Related Research Articles

MLB Advanced Media, L.P. (MLBAM) is a limited partnership of the club owners of Major League Baseball (MLB) based in New York City and is the Internet and interactive branch of the league.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NFL Sunday Ticket</span> American football subscription television

NFL Sunday Ticket is an out-of-market sports package that broadcasts National Football League (NFL) regular season games unavailable on local affiliates. It carries all the regional Sunday afternoon games produced by Fox and CBS. The ideal customer of this package is presumed to be a fan of a team who is unable to see their team on local television because they do not reside in one of that team's markets, or sports bars who want to increase business by attracting fans of out of market teams. Beginning with the 2023 NFL season, for residential customers in the United States, NFL Sunday Ticket moved exclusively to YouTube TV, as well as to YouTube's recently-launched Primetime Channels service as a standalone subscription option. The league then formed a new company called EverPass Media to distribute the package to bars, restaurants, and other commercial venues. From 1994 to 2023, the package was distributed in the United States exclusively by DirecTV.

Amazon Prime Video, or simply Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming and rental service of Amazon offered both as a stand-alone service and as part of Amazon's Prime subscription. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced by Amazon MGM Studios or licensed to Amazon, as Amazon Originals, with the service also hosting content from other providers, content add-ons, live sporting events, and video rental and purchasing services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NBA League Pass</span> Sports television service

NBA League Pass is the National Basketball Association's direct-to-consumer subscription-based product that provides live and on-demand NBA games. It is available to those in the United States and also as an international package for all other countries. TV versions can be viewed through a cable or satellite TV provider, as well as an over-the-top streaming service operated by the league.

Major League Baseball games not broadcast exclusively by its media partners are televised by regional sports networks, which present sports programming of interest to their respective region. Most MLB broadcasters are members of chains such as NBC Sports Regional Networks and Bally Sports, although several teams are broadcast by regional networks that are independent of these chains. Some teams own partial or majority stakes in their regional broadcaster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TuneIn</span> American audio streaming service

TuneIn is a global audio streaming service providing news, radio, sports, music, and podcasts to over 75 million monthly active users.

Major League Baseball has rules for exclusive broadcasting, called 'blackout' rules, which bar certain areas from watching livegames.

YouTube TV is an American streaming television service operated by YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. Announced on February 28, 2017, the virtual multichannel video programming distributor offers a selection of live linear channel feeds and on-demand content from more than 100 television networks and over 30 OTT-originated services, as well as a cloud-based DVR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TV Everywhere</span> Authentication for streaming video

TV Everywhere refers to a type of American subscription business model wherein access to streaming video content from a television channel requires users to "authenticate" themselves as current subscribers to the channel, via an account provided by their participating pay television provider, in order to access the content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NFL+</span> Subscription sports streaming service

NFL+ is an over-the-top subscription service operated by the National Football League (NFL) in the United States. The service offers live-streaming of the radio broadcasts of all NFL games, streaming of the television broadcasts of in-market games on mobile devices, streaming of out-of-market preseason games, live access to NFL Network, and library content from NFL Films. The service's premium tier offers on-demand replays of NFL games, including alternate "All-22" and "Coaches Film" presentations, and live access to NFL RedZone. Outside the United States, NFL Game Pass International is distributed by the over-the-top streaming service DAZN, either a standalone subscription or an add-on to an existing DAZN package. The primary differences between the domestic NFL+ service and the international Game Pass version are that the latter is general sold as a single combined tier, and also includes live streaming of regular season and postseason games regardless of device.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SonyLIV</span> Indian video streaming service

SonyLIV is an Indian subscription video-on-demand over-the-top streaming service owned by Culver Max Entertainment. SonyLIV was introduced in 2013 as the first OTT service in India. As a streaming service, it provides live sports, original titles, other content titles from its own networks and content titles in India licensed from third-parties such as Lionsgate and ITV among others. The Sony Liv content library includes films, TV shows, series, and sports.

YouTube Premium is a subscription service offered by the American video platform YouTube. The service provides ad-free access to content across the service, as well as access to premium YouTube Originals programming produced in collaboration with the site's creators, downloading videos and background playback of videos on mobile devices, and access to the music streaming service, YouTube Music. It has over 100 million subscribers.

HBO Now was an American subscription video on demand streaming service for premium television network HBO owned by WarnerMedia subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc. Officially unveiled on March 9 and launched on April 7, 2015, the service allowed subscribers on-demand access to HBO's library of original programs, films and other content on personal computers, smartphones, tablet devices and digital media players. Unlike HBO Go, HBO's online video on demand service for existing subscribers of the linear television channel, HBO Now was available as a standalone service and does not require a television subscription to use, targeting cord cutters who use competing services such as Netflix and Hulu. As of February 2018, HBO Now had 5 million subscribers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Hockey League on television</span> Overview of North American professional ice hockey on television

The National Hockey League (NHL) is shown on national television in the United States and Canada. With 25 teams in the U.S. and 7 in Canada, the NHL is the only one of the four major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada that maintains separate national broadcasters in each country, each producing separate telecasts of a slate of regular season games, playoff games, and the Stanley Cup Finals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">YouTube Music</span> Music streaming service by YouTube

YouTube Music is a music streaming service developed by the American video platform YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. The service is designed with a user interface that allows users to explore songs and music videos on YouTube based on genres, playlists, and recommendations. In April 2023, the service expanded its offerings to include support for podcasts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FuboTV</span> American streaming television service

FuboTV Inc., operating as FuboTV or Fubo, is an American streaming television service serving customers in the United States, Canada, and Spain and based in Midtown Manhattan. The network focuses primarily on channels that distribute live sports. Depending on the country it is accessed in, channels offered by Fubo may potentially include access to the Premier League, NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS, CPL, and international football, as well as news, network television series, and movies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kayo Sports</span> Australian sports streaming service

Kayo Sports is an over-the-top video streaming subscription service available in Australia, owned by Hubbl. The service offers sports live and on demand from Fox Sports, ESPN and Racing.com.

Peacock is an American over-the-top video streaming service owned and operated by Peacock TV LLC, a subsidiary of NBCUniversal Media Group. Named after the NBC logo, the service launched on July 15, 2020. The service primarily features series and film content from NBCUniversal studios and other third-party content providers, including television series, films, news, and sports programming. The service is available in a grandfathered free ad-supported version with limited content, while premium tiers include a larger content library and access to additional NBC Sports, Hallmark Channel, and WWE content.

<i>Friday Night Baseball</i> Weekly MLB broadcast on Apple TV+

Friday Night Baseball is a live broadcast of Major League Baseball (MLB) games on Apple TV+ that debuted during the league's 2022 season. The weekly broadcast is produced by MLB Network, featuring a doubleheader with pregame and postgame analysis. The broadcast is available in the North American market consisting of the United States, Canada and Mexico as well as select overseas markets including Australia, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom, with plans to expand availability of the broadcast to more regions in the future.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MLS Season Pass</span> Soccer streaming service

MLS Season Pass is a soccer streaming service operated by Apple Inc. which includes live matches from Major League Soccer. The package was launched in the 2023 Major League Soccer season as part of a new 10-year media rights agreement between MLS and Apple, under which it holds the global over-the-top streaming rights to the league.

References

  1. ↑ MLB.tv Premium website
  2. ↑ MLB.tv: Connected Devices, mlb.tv
  3. ↑ MLB.tv Audio Overlay service
  4. ↑ "Watch live: Big Inning streaming on MLB.TV". MLB.com. Retrieved 2021-04-14.
  5. ↑ Alexa Datt [@AlexaDatt] (April 13, 2021). "Hey hey! I'm hosting a new show! Big Inning is fun, live and commercial-free! The best action in baseball as it happens. Let's hang out!🔥 Weekdays 9:30pm ET on http://MLB.tv" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  6. ↑ "Baseball officials plan live video streaming" on c|net news
  7. ↑ MLB.com Los Angeles Dodgers & Oakland Athletics games are blackout in Guam (see Blackout notice at bottom of page) (Retrieved 18 May 2018 from mlb.com)
  8. ↑ "A black(out) eye for baseball" by Jeff Passan, Yahoo! sports.
  9. ↑ MLB.tv subscription information
  10. ↑ Seltzer, Larry (June 28, 2004). "Major League Baseball Knows Where You Live!". eweek.com. Retrieved December 5, 2012.
  11. ↑ "DSG fails to pay Padres; TV rights revert to MLB". ESPN.com. 2023-05-30. Retrieved 2024-02-28.
  12. ↑ "Diamondbacks games no longer to be carried on Bally Sports; MLB moving them to new outlets". The Arizona Republic. Retrieved 2024-02-28.
  13. ↑ "MLB producing, distributing Padres games". MLB.com. Retrieved 2024-02-28.
  14. ↑ "MLB producing, distributing D-backs games". MLB.com. Retrieved 2024-02-28.
  15. ↑ "Stream in-market D-backs games live in 2024". MLB.com. Retrieved 2024-02-28.
  16. ↑ "Stream in-market Padres games live in 2024". MLB.com. Retrieved 2024-02-28.
  17. ↑ "Stream in-market Rockies games live in 2024". MLB.com. Retrieved 2024-02-28.
  18. ↑ Weprin, Alex (2023-06-15). "How MLB Took Over a Regional Sports Network in 24 Hours". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2024-02-28.
  19. ↑ "MLB.com Mobile Software Website"
  20. ↑ "MLBAM's Beat the Streak chases history". Sports Business Journal. 16 May 2016. Retrieved May 18, 2017.
  21. ↑ Davies, Ross E. (Fall 2010). "The Law Firm and the League: Morgan, Lewis and Bockius LLP, Major League Baseball, and MLB.com". Baseball Research Journal. Society for American Baseball Research. Archived from the original on July 28, 2012. Retrieved September 1, 2012.
  22. ↑ Mullaney, Timothy J. (November 20, 2000). "Switch Hit for a Domain Name". BusinessWeek . Archived from the original on February 11, 2001. Retrieved September 1, 2012.
  23. ↑ "BBB Business Review Reliability Report for MLB Advanced Media".
  24. ↑ Tartakoff, Joseph (2009-04-09). "Washington Post Article on MLB.TV, April 9, 2009". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2010-05-12.
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