MLB.TV 2009 prices announced

Baseball fans the world over look forward to the day every year when the MLB.tv prices are announced for the upcoming season. The details of the 2009 subscription packages were revealed earlier today, with the headline grabber being that the listed prices have dropped by $10.

It’s a welcome reduction for everybody, although the significant change in the pound/dollar exchange rate over the last twelve months means that British fans still will be paying between £8 and £13 more than last year.  Thanks to the excellent products on offer, few will be put off by the increase. 

MLB.com can always be counted on to introduce new features to their multimedia products (although not always for the better, in some eyes) and 2009 will be no exception.  The main noteworthy features are:

A new media player. As highlighted previously, the main overall change relates to the media player through which the multimedia content will be delivered.  Out goes the unpopular Silverlight player and in comes a new Flash-based player, described in the lead article on MLB.com as “more robust” than the previous one used. 

Highlights and real time stats.  The new Flash player will allow you to watch game highlights and receive stat updates inside the main window.  Such highlights were introduced in the Gameday application last year and should prove invaluable (for example, when you miss the first hour of a game due to miscalculating the time difference).

New viewing/listening options.It appears as though the streaming rate options will stay the same as last year, which is no bad thing. MLB.tv subscribers were able to select between home and away feeds (where available) for the first time at the end of the 2008 season and this feature will carry over. MLB Premium subscribers will also be able to match the TV footage with the radio feed of their choice, as well as pausing/rewinding/fast-forwarding the game (the latter only possible during a live game after you’ve done either of the other two, of course).

Condensed games. They tried to take them away, but people power brought them back.  MLB.com have acknowledged this, although their claim that they “considered shelving them” sticks in the throat a bit because they bloody well did shelve them, with no warning, at the start of last season.  Anyway, they’re back and that’s fantastic news.

 

MLB.com will once again be providing live and archived content in three different packages, each one specifically tailored for the differing wishes and budgets of the many baseball fans who want to follow the sport over the Internet.  British fans should remember that no blackout restrictions apply to us, so we genuinely have access to every single game live.  In previous years, the regular season subscription has also allowed us to watch/listen to all the postseason games as well, even though this is not explicitly stated anywhere on MLB.com.  Add in 100 Spring Training games and the World Baseball Classic and you’ve got a staggering amount of games available to watch live or on demand.

Please note that the prices stated in pounds are correct at the time of publication.  As we all know only too well by now, the pound/dollar exchange rate does fluctuate so check on a currency converter site for the most accurate figure.  An overseas transaction charge (normally around £1) may also apply depending on who you bank with.  All prices relate to the cheaper season-long subscription option, although you can pay monthly.

Gameday Audio – £10.25 ($14.95)

The cheapest package provides you with home and away radio feeds for every single MLB game, as it has done for several years now.  It is designed to be a very affordable, basic subscription service that will work on any computer/Internet set-up.  There are no real additions or improvements on last year’s package, which is partly why the cost can continue to be so low. 

However, it is a shame that the service hasn’t undergone a development in terms of offering an option to listen at a higher streaming rate.  Many people are now used to listening to virtually crystal clear radio via the Internet and the low streaming rate of Gameday Audio is reflected in the fairly poor sound quality.  The 18kps service makes it available to everyone and that certainly is an important consideration, but giving fans an option to listen to a 150K feed instead (for example) would be very welcome.

The current sound quality is still okay and listening to a game has its own unique charm.  So if you don’t think you can justify spending the money on the video subscriptions, you should definitely sign up.

MLB.TV – £54.60 ($79.95)

The ‘basic’ TV package offers every MLB game live and on-demand via the archives, alongside the condensed games and the Gameday Audio content.  Currently they state that you will be able to watch a ‘TV quality picture’ with the 800K feed and they make no mention of the 400K feed from years past.  However it’s almost certain that both options will still be available.  The 400K feed picture is fine and the 800K feed does provide a noticeably better picture if your PC/Internet set-up can cope with the increased streaming rate. 

It would be fair to call this the ‘no frills’ option.  If you simply want to watch/listen to lots of baseball games at a decent picture quality, this is the one for you.  It cost £47 twelve months ago, so a real-term increase of less than £8 isn’t too bad at all.

MLB Premium – £75 ($109.95)

As suggested by the name, this is the top package with all of the content listed above as well as a host of fancy features on top.  The 1.2MB picture is genuinely impressive, so long as your set-up can cope with it (sadly mine chugged to a halt when I tried to use it last year) and the ‘Mosaic’ and ‘Player Tracker’ features should appeal to fantasy baseball fans.  The ability to listen to radio feeds in sync with the TV pictures is a nice little addition, but it’s not one that would have been on the top of my ‘improvements list’.  If it encourages MLB.com to stream higher quality radio feeds though (and perhaps they will as part of this?), that would definitely be a good thing. 

The main addition to the Premium package is the introduction of a ‘DVR Functionality’ which will allow you to pause, rewind and fast-forward the live footage.  Established MLB.tv subscribers will get a kick out of this feature, purely because we’ve become used to the picture freezing and then jumping forward in the past due to technical difficulties.  The Premium package price is around £13 higher than last year for Brits.

Conclusion

MLB.com have introduced enough new features with the 2009 subscription packages to keep things interesting, whilst concentrating on making the core part of the service (broadcasting baseball games) even better than before.  The new media player should be an improvement and that’s before we add in the proposed Adobe desktop application that will provide highlights and stats on your desktop outside your web browser.  With three options available, all at very reasonable prices considering what you get for your money, British and International baseball fans will be extremely keen to sign up to one of the packages if possible.

Now we just need the games to start!