Should a well-placed hit or spectacular catch determine the winner of the World Series this week, avid baseball fans will be able to scrutinize every detail of the decisive play.
Fans will know whether the pitch was a changeup or a fastball and whether it dipped at the last second or just caught a piece of the strike zone.
They will know the exact velocity of the ball and whether the trajectory was similar to the pitches that came before it.
And they will know all of it in a matter of seconds. Because, while baseball may be the most traditional of sports, it also happens to be the most progressive when it comes to reaching an audience over the Internet.
In some cases, the data will be served up so quickly on Major League Baseball's website that the statistics and graphics will be posted on computer screens around the world before the call is even made on radio or TV because of the slight broadcast signal delay.
That live element, part of MLB.com's Enhanced Gameday feature, has become a smash hit on the Internet this postseason as baseball fanatics flock to the Internet to supplement their postseason viewing. In September alone, Comscore MediaMetrix reports, nearly 10 million people logged on to the site.
In less than six years, MLB has turned its Web operations into a multibillion-dollar on-line juggernaut. With a vast archive of every game played this season and last, plus dozens of historic games dating back to the 1950s — all available on-demand — the site is the only sports-related property to be mentioned in the same breath as streaming video kings YouTube, Yahoo and MySpace in terms of the number of clips served up.
America's pastime, which blossomed on the radio and came of age on television, is now using the Internet not only to reach fans on multiple platforms but to give them a depth of content — accessible and immediate — never enjoyed by any sports fan before.
Other sports leagues — and for that matter, other media firms — are looking on enviously at what MLB has built on the Internet in just a few years.
“Baseball has never had a reputation of being a technological leader,” said Jim Gallagher, spokesman for MLB Advanced Media LP. “But baseball has been at the forefront on the Internet. We've made all the mistakes that people who are just starting out face, so smartly a lot of people are coming to us.”
For a moment, forget YouTube and its rapid rise from startup to billion-dollar property. The genesis of baseball's Internet presence has been every bit as remarkable. And since YouTube has yet to earn a dollar for itself, MLB.com is all that more impressive considering its profitability.
In 2000, a few visionary executives saw the potential for baseball on the Internet and at the same time recognized the dangers of losing out to an upstart that could duplicate content such as stats or analysis. Baseball's 30 teams agreed to each kick in $1-million (U.S.) a season over four years to jump-start the venture at a time when streaming media was in its infancy.
Yet the gamble worked, and much sooner than anticipated.
In just its second year of operation, the site had paid for itself. Users were logging on by the millions, first for audio play-by-play and extensive stats, then for video, and today for the massive amount of content, such as the live pitch tracker.
Revenue from the site, which is divided equally between the 30 teams, soared to $195-million last year, from $36-million in 2001. Visitors have climbed to 1.7 billion from 190 million during that time, while subscribers — who shell out anywhere from $10 a season to $100 for access to video, audio and statistical breakdowns of games — hit 1.3 million last year, up from 125,000 in 2001.
