Baseball Musings: Not Quite There

March 21, 2007

Not Quite There

MLB rejected the deal offered by iN Demand made earlier today:

Not so fast, said Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer.
"The communication sent to our office today by iN Demand is not responsive to that offer," he said. "In spite of their public comments, the response falls short of nearly all of the material conditions (among them requirements for carriage of The Baseball Channel and their share of the rights fees for Extra Innings) set forth in the Major League Baseball offer made to them on March 9."

DuPuy said the March 31 deadline to match remains.

So they're still playing chicken. The cable company blinked first, which gives MLB the leg up. My guess is we'll need to stay up until midnight on March 31st to find out if these games are going to be on cable.

Update: I also wonder how much of a difference this is going to make? If I can stream MLB broadcasts from my computer, I can buy the cheaper MLB package and get about the same results.

Posted by David Pinto at 03:45 PM | Broadcasts | TrackBack (0)

Comments

I want to use my computer for other things while the game is on.

C'mon InDemand & MLB, get a deal done. And yes, I want the Baseball Channel (heck, up my rate $1/month for it. I'm a junkie.)

Posted by: rbj at March 21, 2007 04:16 PM

Speaking of Gameday on the computer, does anyone have any experience with it on a Mac with Safari? I know I have everything it requires, but I'm wary because the demos that actually bring up the "Media Player" (such as this one) don't in fact play any media for me.

I'm hoping this is a problem with the demo and not the actual service, but I'm not about to drop the cash unless I know for sure.

Posted by: dan at March 21, 2007 05:18 PM

Will mlb.tv work through the Apple TV? I doubt it, MLB makes it difficult to access content outside of an embedded media player via a web page.

Posted by: John Gibson at March 21, 2007 05:50 PM

I have it on a Mac, but it doesn't want to enlarge for me in Safari like it will on a PC, so I have it set so that it opens every time in Quicktime, and that works fine. Not full screen, but close enough.

Posted by: Mark at March 21, 2007 06:23 PM

I'm confused. So did inDemand lie in their press release when they said that they matched the $700 million DIRECTV offer and will add the Baseball Channel? That's what it seems like from DuPuy's reply. What was their real offer?

Posted by: Katie at March 21, 2007 07:44 PM

Maybe I'm just being cynical, but I don't trust MLB on this. I have a feeling that inDemand and the Dish network never really had a chance to match DirectTV's offer, and saying that they did was just a way for MLB to distract angry fans and legislators. Now it looks like inDemand is calling MLB's bluff, so MLB had to turn around and say that inDemand's offer was insufficient. Something fishy is going on here, and either MLB or inDemand is lying. Given MLB's history, I have trouble believing them.

Posted by: JeffW at March 21, 2007 07:50 PM

The answer to the above question depends on how you look at it. In a logical interperatation, indemand matched the offer in that they offered the same amount of money as direct tv and offered to make the mlb channel available to the same amount of people. But mlb has no intention of allowing indemand to provide extra innings as they want indemand to make the mlb channel available to the same PERCENTAGE of cable subscribers as PERCENTAGE of direct tv subscribers who will have the mlb channel. This does not even resemble a fair offer because someone subscribing for cable pays less and cares less about the amount of channels they recieve as the average direct tv subscriber.

Posted by: ben at March 21, 2007 08:40 PM

At $105 for the season (counting spring training), the internet is a lousy substitute for cable or satellite. The quality, especially on full screen, is horrible. I'd far rather listen to an audio broadcast than pay for the hideous resolution available on MLB TV.

Posted by: Rand at March 21, 2007 09:53 PM

The MLB.TV premium package ($120) has promised 700K video for this season which is double of last year. The demo doesn't look all that bad. I've subscribed and I'm looking into a duo monitor setup so I can watch games while I'm getting other work done. The MLB.com site improves every year.

That being said, I agree with JeffW. This whole deal reaks of under-the-table deals between MLB and DirectTV. They (MLB) seems to be doing everything they can to fight off inDemand rather than giving them a fair chance and allowing the best interest of the fans to dictate the direction they go.

Posted by: Scott Segrin at March 22, 2007 08:39 AM

Fans lose! Fans lose! Fans lose!

Can't watch the home team on MLB.TV, not willing to subscribe to Direct TV. Farewell, baseball on TV. I'll be enjoying the basketball playoffs this spring.

Bob DuPuy is the dumbest human on the planet.

Posted by: Scott at March 22, 2007 11:39 AM