Major League Baseball has struck out in its attempt to get the U.S. Supreme Court to intercede in a fantasy baseball dispute.
The justices on Monday said they won't take up MLB's challenge, backed by the National Football League Players Association, of prior court rulings favoring a fantasy league company. The announcement came without comment in a standard list of case statuses published by the high court (PDF).
MLB's Internet media arm, later joined by the pro-baseball players' union, had claimed that C.B.C. Distribution and Marketing--a Missouri company that sells fantasy sports products via the Web, e-mail, regular mail, and phone--was using baseball players' names and statistics without a license, thereby violating the players' rights to publicity under state intellectual property laws. (A right to publicity, of course, is a person's right to control and profit from the commercial use of his name and likeness.)
The original lawsuit actually came from C.B.C. The company sued MLB after the pro baseball association began providing fantasy baseball games on its own Web site. MLB offered C.B.C. a license only to promote MLB's products, not to continue selling its own fantasy baseball games. Fearing a lawsuit from MLB if it continued business as usual, C.B.C. filed its own suit.
C.B.C. won at the district court level and again last year at the appeals court level, which held that the company's "first amendment rights in offering its fantasy baseball products supersede the players' rights of publicity."
Yahoo announced Thursday that it has teamed up with MLB.com, the digital arm of professional baseball's operations, in a partnership that encompasses both video distribution and ad sales.
Considering the turmoil over at Yahoo, the three-year agreement could be either a home run or a strikeout.
On the video side, content from Major League Baseball's MLB.tv will be syndicated on Yahoo Sports through the 2010 season. This means that if you're a Yahoo user, you'll be able to watch live and on-demand baseball games on Yahoo Sports--provided that they're not in your home market. MLB.com says this will amount to more than 2,400 games each year. Yahoo Sports will additionally broadcast game recap show FastCast and other MLB.com video.
The MLB.tv content will be available on a co-branded player on Yahoo Sports in 11 countries, including the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Currently, access to live out-of-market games on MLB.com's MLB.tv requires a subscription of between $14.95 and $19.95 per month (or $89.95 and $119.95 per year), depending on quality. Yahoo users will pay the same subscription amount for the co-branded Yahoo Sports player.
Yahoo will also be the exclusive advertising partner for MLB.tv in the 2009 and 2010 seasons. In the 2008 season, Yahoo will use its Clickable video ads as well as preroll and postroll ads provided by MLB Advanced Media. After that, Yahoo will take over completely by using its new AMP graphical ad system.
That whole Microsoft thing, or Google thing, or News Corp. thing, or whatever it is now, could shake things up, though.
In the lingering fallout from a damning report on steroid use by Major League Baseball players, the sport's top executive is calling on Congress to help in leading a crackdown on Internet pharmacies.
"Sen. Mitchell's report identified the difficulties inherent in any attempt, whether by baseball, by other professional sports, or by the Olympics, to stop by itself the use of illegal performance-enhancing substances," MLB Commissioner Bud Selig told members of a U.S. House of Representatives panel at a hearing on the topic on Tuesday afternoon, according to prepared remarks (PDF). "We welcome your participation in attacking the problem at its source."
Selig, of course, was referring to 304 pages' worth of findings by George Mitchell, a former U.S. senator whom MLB hired in 2006 to investigate past steroid use by its players. The resulting document implicated star players, including Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, brothers Jason and Jeremy Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Kevin Brown, and David Justice, and it described alleged illegal Internet-based purchases of performance-enhancing substances by 16 other players.
Selig told the committee that baseball executives "wholly support" a sweeping crime bill introduced last October by Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) that attempts to rein in online pharmacies that dispense prescription drugs without valid permission from a doctor.
Biden's broader bill incorporates a standalone online pharmacy proposal, co-sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), that was already approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee in September.
Among other things, that proposal would require that Internet sites dispense "controlled substances," such as many widely used pain-killing narcotics, only after processing a valid prescription from a doctor who has given the patient at least one in-person evaluation. Pharmacies would also be required to display certain identifying information on their Web sites and state their compliance with the law. Failure to comply would carry steep fines and up to 20 years in prison.
It's hardly a new idea. Congress has been trying to pass legislation regulating online pharmacies since before the dot-com bust.
Feinstein first drafted such a bill shortly after a California high-school honor student and athlete named Ryan Haight died in 2001 from an overdose of the painkiller hydrocodone. According to Feinstein's office, Haight had purchased the drug from an online pharmacy after filling out a questionnaire, claiming he was a 25-year-old with back pain, and securing a prescription from a doctor who had never examined him in person.
It's not entirely clear whether the new legislation is needed. A federal law called the Controlled Substances Act already makes it illegal to dispense certain classes of drugs without a valid prescription from a physician.
Backers of the new Internet pharmacy bill say their measure would "clarify" that the law also applies online, but prosecutors
There's also the international enforcement conundrum: About half of online pharmacy sites reside overseas, according to research described before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year by Joseph Califano, the chairman and president of Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. About a fourth of the sites are based in the United States, and the remaining ones have unknown origins, he added.
Still, Biden, Sessions, and Feinstein each pointed to Selig's testimony as proof that their legislation should be passed promptly.
"Rogue online pharmacies have become the street corner drug dealers of the Information Age," Sen. Feinstein said in a statement Tuesday evening. "Whether it's a superstar or a teenager, we must ensure that they cannot obtain controlled substances without a valid prescription."
Correction: Major League Baseball saw 2 million downloads not page views.
A steroid scandal may have irreparably tarnished baseball's image but it sure generated plenty of page views.
Major League Baseball released a report Thursday on the prevalence of performance enhancing drugs in the game and a copy of the report was downloaded from the league's Web site more than 2 million times.
The number would have likely been higher had popular sports sites operated by Sports Illustrated, ESPN and others, not posted copies as well.
An investigation by former Senator George Mitchell implicated more than 80 past and present major leaguers with steroid use, including Roger Clemens, Miguel Tejada, Andy Pettitte and Lenny Dykstra.
For those interested in checking whether their favorite professional baseball player is a cheat, Major League Baseball has posted a report on steroid use among current and former players.
Miguel Tejada allegedly paid by check for steroids
(Credit: Major League Baseball)The 304-page report can be found at mlb.com/mitchrpt.pdf (PDF). The document is the result of an investigation conducted by former Senator George Mitchell, who is scheduled to hold a press conference this morning.
MLB executives hired Mitchell in 2006.
Mitchell rounded up the usual suspects in his report, such as Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Gary Sheffield, and the brothers, Jason and Jeremy Giambi. But among the surprise players implicated by Mitchell are Miguel Tejada, Kevin Brown, David Justice, Lenny Dykstra and Paul Lo Duca.
A spokesman for Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the group that oversees league's digital operations, said the group is prepared to handle any kind of spike in Web site traffic.
Updated Oct. 23, 11:50 a.m.; details at bottom.
What if you threw a World Series and no one came because they couldn't buy tickets?
That is the dilemma facing the Colorado Rockies on Monday after the baseball team suspended online ticket sales because servers were overwhelmed by traffic.
"We are as frustrated and disappointed as (fans) are," Jay Alves told The Denver Post, adding that team officials had no idea so many people would try to use the Web site.
The team said it would honor the several hundred tickets already sold but it's unclear how or when sales of tickets will resume for the series, which kicks off in Boston against the Red Sox on Wednesday. The series moves to Denver for game three on Saturday.
Tickets were supposed to go on sale at 10 a.m. MDT, but many fans reported getting messages at that time that the server was full when they attempted to make ticket purchases. The newspaper reported that the breakdown was due to a problem with the ticketing software operated by Paciolan, an Irvine, Calif.-based ticketing company. The problem reportedly also affected other Paciolan customers, including the University of Colorado football team.
Because ticket sales were planned to be conducted only online, many fans are apparently converging near Coors Field in hopes that the team will sell tickets in person through the box office; so many in fact that the police have closed streets around the ballpark and are erecting barricades, the paper reported.
October 23 update: A day after saying that ticket servers buckled under the traffic of 8.5 million hits, team officials now say the servers crashed as a result of an "external, malicious attack." Neither the team nor Paciolan offered any details about the attack, but some speculate that it could have been a denial-of-service attack.
Some 18,000 tickets for each game remain unsold, and the team plans to try to resume ticket sales Tuesday.
As an apparent consolation to fans who still come out to watch their perennially poor home team, baseball's Kansas City Royals will install the largest high-definition LED (light-emitting diode) screen in the world next year, according to the team.
(Credit:
Daktronics)
Provided by Daktronics, the screen will measure 100 feet by 85 feet, will feature 1,800 lines of resolution, and will be mounted in the outfield and capped with a golden crown, the team symbol.
The installation will take place prior to the beginning of the 2008 season, instantly putting Kansas City's Kauffman Stadium ahead of former screen size world record holders Miami's Dolphin Stadium and University of Texas at Austin's Texas Memorial Stadium. (The 103-feet-by-31-feet display at AT&T Park, home of the San Francisco Giants, is nothing to sneeze at either.)
Just to up the ante a little further, Daktronics will also be decorating Kansas City's left-field fence with a giant HD display for out-of-town scores. The HD video makeover seems to be part of a large-scale renovation at the team's stadium. While that's nice and all, as a baseball fan, I'd prefer management shell out a few extra million on a decent pitching staff and a power hitter over fancy HD replays. But maybe that's just me.
HP wants to bring you the news, just like Ron Burgundy.
(Credit: DreamWorks)At this week's Print 2.0 conference in New York, HP's Digital Entertainment Services group announced a new program called NextDayTV, which will make local TV coverage, events, broadcast programs, and televised sports games available on DVD soon after their original air dates. The inaugural partnership for the program is a deal with Major League Baseball, and you can now purchase a DVD of the game in which Barry Bonds hit his legendary 756th home run at San Francisco Giants Dugout stores as well as online at the Wal-Mart, Major League Baseball, FYE, and Suncoast Web sites.
Still to come are more partnerships, so that NextDayTV will be able to create DVDs on demand, as well as offer more "broadcast TV shows and sporting events that have high relevancy in specific geographic markets or with specific consumer segments" within a few days of their original air dates. Many of these, a release from HP stressed, would never make it to DVD for weeks or months (if ever).
This is obviously designed as a competitor to DVR services (some of which can burn programs to DVDs--others, like the one I have, can't) and digital marketplaces like the iTunes Store. But it seems a little bit counterintuitive for a company to be creating a video content program that uses DVDs rather than digital downloads; presumably the NextDayTV market will be those consumers who aren't jumping onto the video-on-demand and digital-download bandwagon. You know, like your mom.
The Milwaukee Brewers hit a home run this year, landing the 10th ranked spot on Harris Interactive's list of America's favorite baseball teams.
Last year, the Brewers ranked No. 18, after having spent four consecutive years in the dugout with rankings in the low to mid 20s, according to Harris Interactive's announcement. The fact that the Brewers are leading the National League's central division is likely giving some froth to its rankings.
The online poll, which surveyed 2,372 adults in the U.S., ran from June 5-11.
And who was America's favorite baseball team this year?
Once again, the New York Yankees--for a fifth consecutive year. Sorry, Mets fans, your team took a hit this year, falling to the No. 7 spot from No. 2 in the previous year.
The Atlanta Braves moved up a notch to No. 2 this year from No. 3 last year, while the Boston Red Sox jumped to No. 3 from No. 5, during the same time period.
St. Louis Cardinals ranked No. 4 this year, also moving up by two points from the previous year. The Chicago Cubs weren't as lucky, slipping to No. 5, as the Cardinals ousted the team from its lofty perch.
Several teams made further gains on fan enthusiasm this year. The Detroit Tigers rose one notch to rank No. 6, the Seattle Mariners climbed to No. 8 from No. 10, and the Cincinnati Reds that jumped to No. 9 from No. 14 last year.
For the Mariners, fan appreciation may also come from the added entertainment of watching the team clear the benches when it plays.
On Sunday, the Mariners and Oakland Athletics engaged in a pissing match that brought both teams out of the dugout and onto the field, according to a posting on KomoTV.com.
And, as seen on YouTube, the the Mariners and Yankees cleared the benches in May, and the Northwest team was at it in March with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Next season, the Mariners may also double their revenue by selling boxing tickets.
Some multimillionaire Major League Baseball players needed special connections to get their hands on one of Apple's iPhones this past weekend.
ESPN.com's Peter Gammons (paid subscription required) found two Detroit Tigers, Justin Verlander and Curtis Granderson, who used their inside connections at Apple retail stores to score an iPhone. The Detroit players, in the middle of a tough series against the Minnesota Twins during iPhone weekend, texted some buddies at Apple stores to inquire about iPhone availablility and have a few set aside.
Nothing goes better with baseball than beer--and now, iPhones.
(Credit: Casimir Fornalski/CNET News.com)It was a little easier for the San Francisco Giants' Brad Hennessey, who works not too far away from the downtown San Francisco Apple store. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, he simply walked up the street Friday night--after giving up a 10th-inning homer to lose the game for the woeful Giants--to pick up his iPhone a little after 11 p.m., long after the crowds in line had left.
Baseball players are rich young men with a lot of downtime between games, which makes them perfect targets for consumer electronics companies. But iPods have also become popular as study aids for players, who can put a season's worth of at-bats or opposing pitchers on their music player to prepare for an upcoming game. Check back later this year for a special report on how the sports world--even tradition-bound baseball--is becoming more and more high-tech.
