Press Row

Overview

The lockout. Steroid scandals. The salary cap debate. Baseball, of the four major sports, has endured the most black clouds of anyone. Yet despite a talent and popularity surge in the NBA, MLB remains the second most popular and profitable sport behind the NFL.

A very interesting era in baseball is about to begin: the post-steroid era (we hope). The combination of major stars being outed as steroid users and the recent slump in the economy has resulted in many teams getting significantly younger—which could work in MLB’s benefit in producing marketable stars quicker, or work against them, creating a void in talent and marketability (much like the post-MJ NBA).

With so many hotly debated topics in baseball, the Internet provides a great medium for pundits and fans alike to hem and haw about what’s best for the game. So, let’s get started…

Blogosphere: Baseball doesn’t enjoy the sheer massive amount of blogs and websites that the NFL has, or the notoriety of TrueHoop. In my opinion, baseball’s blog power emanates from the statheads, the fans so dedicated to sabermetrics and the work of luminaries like Bill James.

Probably one of the more notable names in the baseball blogosphere is Will Carroll, he of Baseball Prospectus fame. Much like Football Outsiders, BP encourages fans to see the game outside of the realm of the common fan, beyond the box score.

Speaking of beyond the box score, BTBS is another well-read site that pushes its readers away from the mundane and into the statistically unusual—but very well done, like their dot-chart analysis of Derek Lowe’s pitch location on opening night.

There are plenty of good team-based blogs out there, but probably moreso than any of the other major sports, the numbers (and obviously, popularity) are heavily slanted toward the major market teams, like the Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and Dodgers.

League/team websites: In MLB’s case, it isn’t the actual homepage itself that’s so awesome—it’s all the extras.

MLB.com itself doesn’t offer much that you couldn’t find elsewhere. Where the MLB is making headlines, however, is with the incredibly popular MLB.tv, which re-launched this season at a lower price than season’s passed with a new interface, giving fans the ability to watch streaming games in HD for any team, no matter where they are. It’s already received some pretty significant, thumbs-up coverage and positive reviews so far. (full disclosure: MLB.tv uses Adobe software. Adobe is a client of Edelman. Edelman employs me. Adobe, however, is not one of my clients.)

THIS is where the future of sports media is going. BusinessofVideo says it best: “As far as I am concerned, MLB is doing everything right with their online video offering in 2009 by giving us better quality, at a lower cost. Now if only they could figure out a way to get rid of all the blackout restrictions.”

As far as the rest of MLB.com, its main site is fairly average in its multimedia offerings. The MLBlogs section, however, is extremely impressive. The MLBlogosphere, which uses the tagline “Official Affiliate/Unofficial Opinions”, is a network of MLB-sponsored team bloggers that spans across almost the entire MLB.

Considering these blogs will never be used as news-reporting vehicles—only as “experience” reporters—this is an outstanding way to reach out to fans and give that behind-the-scenes look that the passionate followers all crave. Well done, MLB.

MLBlogs also houses an impressive database of teams, players, news media, and personalities that blog about the MLB, all in a drop-down menu. They even have bi-weekly reports of which sites get the most pageviews. Very cool, and MLB definitely takes the cake in the best uses of league-run blogging.

Like the other major pro sports, every team site is pretty much exactly the same.

Facebook / Twitter: Zilch, much like the NFL. On Twitter, I found Justin Morneau, whose feed is either updated by a ghost writer or Justin always talks about himself in the third person. That’s it. I’m fairly surprised that a sport with as much dead time as MLB doesn’t have at least SOME social media presence.

Think about this: you know how huge Twitter is in New York City? You’d have to think at least half of those people are Yankees fans. Half of all celebrities are Yankees fans. The Yankees are the most recognizable sports brand in America. An official Yankees Twitter feed is as close as you could get to a guaranteed success.

On the other hand, I admit that a team like the Kansas City Royals would need to be pretty creative to build a successful following on Twitter. Then again, for something as relatively inexpensive as a Twitter page, wouldn’t you think it’s at least worth a shot?

Overall

That’s kind of the story of MLB, isn’t it? Some things will be done so well, like a Hall of Fame inductions and the World Baseball Classic (that’s debatable), but then mis-management of the steroid scandal or ending an All Star Game in a tie reminds everyone how strangely out of touch and “focusless” the leaders of the game can be.

The extra’s and niceties of MLB.com are great, but why is MLB.com so ho-hum? How can MLB.com house such an impressive blog network, but all 30 team sites are exactly the same? And on top of that, have absolutely no presence in social media?

Whoever runs the new media department for MLB has, clearly, some excellent ideas. MLB.tv is already a smash-hit and getting better, and the aforementioned blog network is a great start. What they lack, I think, is an overall strategy. Is this blog network part of a bigger push into Internet media for baseball? Will MLB.tv pair with one of the DVR providers—or even Apple, to offer streaming content to iPhone’s?

MLB has the beginnings of a very strong Internet presence already. Much like their peers that run the actual sport, there is no vision—no apparent clue of how this should fit into the bigger picture. It’s just many nice, shiny things that, on their own, will be cool extra’s, but nothing that will knock anyone’s socks off. If MLB has given thought into their Internet future, I’d hope they would capitalize on the emergence of MLB.tv and start unveiling their plans.

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