MLB to begin live video Webcasts of games

Major League Baseball is expanding its Webcasting options with the addition of live video of selected games throughout the week. Games, up to 1,000 of them this coming season, will be streamed at 330K bit/sec using RealVideo via the mlb.tv site. Of course, there’s a price and a catch. First, the fees: $14.95/month or $79.95/season. Users can also buy individual games for $2.95. The catch is you can’t watch your home team live while “in-market”, meaning if the games on local TV, you can’t see it online until 90 minutes after it ends. Not sure how they will determine where you’re physically located, because if they go by your credit cards billing zip code, you could get screwed if you happen to be travelling and want to watch your home team play. But still, this is great step for streaming and sports. Last year’s trial run of a live game between the New York Yankees and Texas Rangers drew 30,000 viewers.

For those interested in audio only, $19.95 per year gets you all the games.