Q&A: MLB Advanced Media - November 2003  

Bob Bowman, president and CEO of Major League Baseball (MLB) Advanced Media.

In the latest article in a series of questions and answers with heads of the new media/interactive divisions of major US sports properties, Rachael Church, editor of Sport and Technology, spoke to Bob Bowman, president and CEO of Major League Baseball (MLB) Advanced Media.

Why was MLB Advanced Media created?

"MLB Advanced Media was created to marry a number of goals. First, we want to have as thorough, broad and fast capability of talking to the fans about the game of baseball whether they live near the Yankee Stadium, or in China or in London. The goal is to have a site that can respond quickly what is going on in baseball whether it is on the field or off the field. Baseball is unique in the sense that the league plays 2,500 games per season, that's 10 times as many as the NFL, therefore every night we have been 10 and 15 games going on. So instant information and the internet become an integral part of a fan's ability to stay on top of their favourite team or teams. Second, we want to harness for the benefit of the industry and ultimately the fans, the importance of this new medium, the internet. And the question there is how important will the internet be in delivering games live on video and audio as we do now or just writing about them? We need to make sure we are as organised and as dedicated to helping the industry as much as possible and that is best achieved by having a separate company. Marrying those two goals leads us to our third element which is the new fans who don't know anything but the internet. That's the way they grew up and that's where they get their information from and that's their whole existence. Reaching that next generation of fans is what we're trying to do in the most economical manner."

What falls under the Advanced Media banner?

"Wireless and anything that's interactive between two people or more, as well as the world wide web. We manage the 30 MLB club sites as well as the league site and on any given day we'll have somewhere around 3m visitors coming to those 30 sites. The sites are managed centrally under the MLB banner for ease of navigation. Someone who is on the Yankees site can easily navigate if they want to find out how their arch rivals the Red Sox are doing for example. Each site is locally generated and locally influenced but all the back end architecture for merchandising and ticketing etc is uniform, therefore saving costs and making it easier for the user. Traffic three years ago when we had 31 separate sites was about 50m in the course of a year. This year the 31 sites will collectively do North of 700m visitors. So certainly the fans have responded favourably to having a synergistic, unified effort to try and reach them."

Which is highest earning revenue stream on the MLB websites?

"Right now commerce – whether merchandise, ticketing or auction - is the most lucrative stream, but over time subscriptions will be higher involving video, audio and those kinds of packages. Our sponsorship on the sites is not insignificant but is not as important as commerce and ultimately won't be the most important revenue stream. These streams will all grow in different places at different paces but in five years I suspect that subscription revenue will be more important."

How popular have your game downloads been so far?

"We launched downloads for three games earlier in the season and we've had around 5,000 to 10,000 downloads. It was then launched again for the play-offs which started on September 29th. Fans could go to the site, see a game they like and then for $3.95, download it to their hard drive or burn a CD and own it forever. If a fan's team went all the way to the World Series then they would probably want to download every game and create a collector's edition. The whole play-off series was available for $14.95 and only available internationally."

Do you see charging for downloads as a big earner for you?

"I don't know yet. No-one has really done this before and downloading typically has been done on the internet for free. Whether or not there's a subscription model for download, I don't think we know yet. The music industry is very different. It might take two seconds to download a song and therefore people are willing to do it for free. But it might take 20 to 30 minutes to download a baseball game with a broadband connection and therefore people will pay for it although I don't know what kind of a market there is. When we launched Live TV which is live video of actual games aimed at displaced fans, we had no idea what kind of market there would be as this had never been done before. We're over 100,000 subscribers so far for this year."

How have the edited versions of games fared?

"We do what we call a condensed game which is around 20 minutes long and literally just consists of the pitches during which there is a great deal of action, everything else is edited out. About 5,000 to 10,000 people watch that every day on the internet in the archive section. What was also an exciting development was during the play-offs, launching a feature called double-play so that two games could be watched at the same time on the site. That was important for the close races between some of the teams."

Are there any other areas of technology you are developing?

"We will be speaking to our television partners about interactive television, but more important to us has been the development of high definition television. We have had some games in that format this year and will have more next year. Once you see a sports event in high definition, it's a different experience and an exciting one for our baseball fans. The take-up of high definition will be similar to that for colour television. When people first saw it at their neighbour's house they said 'I've got to have me one of them' and went to the store to buy one. Once you see high definition sports it may actually spur sales of high definition sets as it is such a different experience."

Turning to other technology used within MLB, what are your views on the controversial QuesTec umpiring system?

"What QuesTec has shown is just how good the umpires are. We have to step away from the technology and address the broader question, 'is this an effective way to assure the fans that the umpires are doing a great job?' and for my money it has been successful in showing that our umpires are the best in the business. That's certainly what I get out of it. When I see replays I see how good the umpires are – I certainly couldn't do their job. Obviously there is some concern that in some ballparks pitches and balls are called differently but there's no empirical evidence of that. The data shows that every game is called the same in every ballpark as a fan would hope. The issue is almost the same as corked bats - as a former physicist I know there is no advantage to be had from playing with a corked bat although some players that use them in practice believe there is and that they help their performance. Likewise, some players are concerned about the QuesTec system but evidence suggests it works well although I am sure it will continue to be an issue in the off-season. As a fan, QuesTec confirms what I always thought – that the umpires are good and the pitchers can pitch."

In which area do you think technology will have the greatest impact on your sport in the future?

"Our ability to capture every pitch now means we'll be able to make available to the fans and the managers, scouts and coaches, a sequence of pitches that not only go into pitch type but also pitch speed, location and trajectory so that one will be able to see first-hand when a pitcher is tiring or when a curve ball is going to go into the Bleechers. Trajectory and how a ball moves are going to become more important than where a ball lands. The fans are going to delight in seeing this kind of information and the managers are going to start to rely on it a bit more as well."

Finally, which team do you personally support Bob?

"All 30 – I love them all!"

The next Q&A will feature Paul Johnson, vice-president of new media for the PGA Tour.

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