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New MLB app lets fans develop GM skills

December 3, 2013 by 2 Comments

mlbvp

Major League Baseball’s Advanced Media Group has taken the wraps off of its latest mobile game as the league is now looking to maintain fan interest and mindshare into in the off season with the release of MLB.com Franchise MVP.

Baseball fans are often known for their following of not just the major league team but all of its affiliates in the minors from short season A teams to AAA as well as Winter League and other off season contests, and this game will appeal to them.

MLB.com Franchise MVP covers not only the pro level but actually starts at the Class A level and includes 120 teams that are in both MLB and MiLB and enables the user to be both a player working his way up to the bigs but also as a manager.

Starting out the user decides on a wide variety of topics and how to apply them such as training and what type, as well as in game decisions for the mini-game simulations. As skills and ability improve the players moves up levels and helps teams win. As the player progresses he earns currency that can be used to buy addition gear, skills and training equipment

In its press release MLB’s vice president of gaming Jamie Leece said “We built this game to be a fun graft of simulation baseball and player development strategies,” Anyone who has sat around with more than two baseball fans knows that these are topics that are very popular.

The app, which is available for free for Apple iPad and iPhones joins a number of other programs that have been developed by MLBAM including MLB Ballpark Empire and MLB.com Home Run Derby. It would be fun if the league made some that included some of the historical but now gone leagues like the Arizona-Mexican League or just any of the Class B, C or D leagues.

Filed Under: Apple, Apps, Baseball, Fantasy Sports, iOS, iPad, iPhone, Major League Baseball Tagged With: , , , , ,

MLB makes At Bat app available for Holidays

December 2, 2013 by 4 Comments

atbat

No doubt by this time of the year you have already seen a dozen advertisements for holiday gifts that run along the line of “Give XXX to the YYY in your life” and yes this is another one of them in that you can for the first time give MLB.com’s At Bat as a holiday gift.

There is a subset of fans in every sport that only follow that sport, don’t ask me why, and they believe that the sporting year opens with camps, or possible with the draft, and ends with whatever marketing name represents their sports’ championship game.

For baseball fans the dry period is now. The Arizona Fall league is over, and while you knew the name and history of all of the players on the Surprise Saguaros and the Mesa Solar Sox, that simply does not cut it as your friends discuss the pending BCS, NFL playoff scenarios and how the NBA and NHL seasons are shaping up.

So get what is likely the most popular baseball to MLB fans, and the 10th highest grossing mobile app all time at the Apple store as a gift by purchasing a subscription to the At Bat version for the 2014 season, for $19.99.

With access to the complete set of premium features in 2014, including live audio of every game and the MLB.TV Free Game of the Day, At Bat 14 will be the perfect holiday gift for any baseball fan.

There is no need to worry about obsolescence and At Bat has the ability to keep avid baseball fans up to date on the current moves in both the Hot Stove league. So head on over to MLB.com and see what is going on.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Major League Baseball Tagged With: , , ,

MLB, NFL team up to battle Aereo

November 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment

aereo

Live-TV startup Aereo has been taking on television broadcasters and winning but now faces an assault by two of America’s largest sports leagues, the NFL and MLB as they seek to prevent it from showing their broadcasts.

The two leagues are seeking to piggyback with an amicus brief to a petition filed by broadcasters that asks the United States Supreme Court to rule on the legality of Aereo’s broadcasting of local over the air signals.

In case you are unfamiliar with Aereo, it is a startup that makes a combination DVR/antenna that captures over the air broadcasts and allows customers to its $8 a month service to view the programming on Internet connected devices.

It started out in New York City last year and then moved to Boston and Atlanta, surviving legal challenges along the way. It has now accelerated its expansion efforts and recently moved into Utah, Chicago, Miami, Houston and Dallas this year.

Apparently this is terrible news to the sports leagues, as well as with NBC, Fox, ABC and CBS, the broadcasters that filed the initial suit. The broadcasters have claimed that Aereo is violating their copyrights and must pay retransmission fees.

The sports leagues have piled on claiming that if they lose exclusive retransmission licensing rights it will make over the air broadcasting less attractive and that they would be forced to go to paid cable networks. According to a piece in Variety the amount that the league collects is about $100 million for those rights.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out on a number of levels. Cable has been losing viewership as a generation of ‘cable cutters’ has emerged and they use Netflix and other online programs, get over the air antennas or do without.

Also the sports should keep boxing in mind. A once popular over the air sport it moved its premium events to pay per view cable, and helped kill the sport. While basic cable is not the same as PPV the example is one to remember.

The trend to get over the air broadcast, either from a service such as Aereo or by using a proxy, often illegal, appears to have accelerated the movement of quality content to basic cable where it is much more difficult to rebroadcast. Will sports follow this trend?

Filed Under: ABC, Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, Lawsuit, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, NFL Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Friday Grab Bag: MLB + MTV, Braves on the move

November 15, 2013 by 1 Comment

The Braves are leaving Atlanta, in all but name, to move to nearby Cobb County and a brand new stadium, one that the bill will primarily be paid for by taxpayers in a county that has budget problems.

The Atlantic does a nice job pointing out how Atlanta may get even more and that most of the jobs that are created by the new park will be low-paying jobs that cost a lot to create. I think the citizens should take a look at how a sweetheart deal paid off for Miami residents and their new ball yard.

Android market share growing
While it seems that Apple’s iPhone is always in the news, smartphones that run on the Android operating system actually rule the smartphone world, with an 81% market share according to market research firm IDC.

Its most recent study on that market space has one very interesting fact, that Windows phones are making strong headway, but still are only 5% of the market. The leader in the Android space is no surprise, as Samsung started strong and has maintained a constant stream of upgrades.

Sports highlights in Canada
If you live in Canada, or for that matter simply read Canadian newspapers a bit more sports is coming your way. SendToNews, a digital sports video company has signed a deal with Postmedia Networks to deliver sports highlights.

The highlights can be seen on Postmedia Network’s newspaper web sites that are available for different papers in different regions of the country.

MLB and MTV
If you miss the days when MTV played all music videos and have disliked the network ever since it stopped doing so this may not be for you but the it has signed a multiyear partnership with MLB that will focus on the intersection of pop culture and baseball.

The effort will be a cross-platform one and will have MLB players as well as outside of the sport celebrities looking at the sport and modern culture. The first program expected will run on MTV2 and will be a 30-episode show that will be produced by Boston Red Sox DH David Ortiz and Pittsburgh Pirates Centerfielder Andrew McCutchen.

New Apple iPhone
Now that Apple has delivered two new lines of iPhones the rumors have started for the next generation — boy that did not take long. Leading off is that it will have a bigger screen, something that many had predicted for the latest release.

More interesting is that they may have curved screens and that Apple will continue to pack them with new sensors, with the latest able to detect levels of pressure. They are reportedly due in about 1 year, so don’t start holding your breath too soon.

Mozilla says no Firefox phones in U.S.
If you are one of the people waiting for open source software to arrive on your phone, and you live in the United States, you will have a wait ahead of you. While the software is expected to be out by mid-2014 for Sprint network devices, that does not include the USA.

An executive recently told C/net that there are currently no plans to launch in the U.S., but that the organization is in talks with carriers and handset manufacturers so that could change in the future.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Boston Red Sox, iPhone, Major League Baseball, Microsoft, Samsung, Smartphone Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

StubHub increases reach with NBC Sports deal

November 13, 2013 by Leave a Comment

nbcsports

Secondary ticket marketer StubHub has just entered into an exclusive multi-year agreement with NBC Sports Digital to become the official ticket provider for all of the NBC Sports Digital properties. The deal will give StubHub an integrated partnership with 12 NBC websites.

Among the sites that will now be partners will be NBCSports.com, NBC Sports Talk Blogs, Rotoworld.com as well as a number of the NBC regional networks such as CSNBayArea.com, CSNCalifornia.com, CSNWashington.com, CSNBaltimore.com, and SNY.tv.

There is some interesting synergy between the two companies. StubHub already draws strong interest from fans who are looking for tickets to sold-out events, or for ones that are expected to be poorly attended. Now fans watching an event on NBC and its family of heavily trafficked web sites might see a notice for an upcoming sporting event that is nearby and quickly look at StubHub to check on ticket pricing and availability.

Since it was launched 13 years ago StubHub has been slowly growing in reach as it has signed a number of powerful sports partners over the years. It is where teams and individuals can go and resell tickets for sporting events, and the games are all priced competitively versus rivals such as Craigslist and SeatAdvisor.

Included in its family of partners are over 60 teams in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and NCAA, the San Francisco Giants and the University of Texas.

Filed Under: Baseball, Major League Baseball, NBA, NBC Sports, NCAA Football, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, NFL, StubHub Tagged With: , , , , ,

MLB’s At Bat app rakes in the viewers and sales

November 1, 2013 by 1 Comment

atbat

Major League Baseball has been very aggressive in developing and delivering a variety of apps that can enhance a fan’s appreciation of the game and the flagship product in that effort is clearly At Bat, a program that enables fans to watch and/or listen to games.

The program has seen strong demand, with 10 million downloads in a single season, and very high usage with 1 billion launches. MLB said that 60% of fans open it every day. Last year it had 6.7 million downloads.

Apple recently announced that the program is one of the 10 top grossing iOS apps of all time, and that is no surprise in view of how long the two have partnered. When Apple opened its App store in 2008, At Bat was one of the original apps available.

Of course the app is not just for Apple’s platform, although they are often the first to get the latest releases and have the most features, but it also has an Android version as well as BlackBerry and Kindle Fire.

It would be interesting to see if the growing popularity of the app, which helps fans view games that might not be broadcast in their area, or hear favorite broadcasters has had any impact on other areas of the game such as television viewership. The recently concluded series between Boston and St. Louis saw TV ratings jump 17% this year.

Filed Under: Amazon, Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Boston Red Sox, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, Smartphone, Tablets Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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