I grew up a die-hard Atlanta Braves fan, but I was left feeling a bit out of touch with the team, since very few of the Braves’ games were broadcast on national television. I did not have the MLB network so I saw only the handful of Sunday night games featured on ESPN during the 2009 season.
This year, however, I decided to purchase a subscription to MLB.tv online at MLB.com giving me access to view every Atlanta Braves game online, assuming the game was not being aired in my viewing area.
MLB.tv requires viewers to pay a small monthly, or annual, fee and allows them to watch games all of the country. The beauty of MLB.tv is that you can take it anywhere you have an internet connection. It isn’t a service that you have to have through your cable provider, or through a mobile carrier. It is a one-time purchase.
It’s a great product of the MLB and a great way to both provide your viewers with a fantastic feature, as well as a great product for the MLB to consistently have its product visible, as often as possible.
“MLB.tv not just modernized, but it revolutionized America’s favorite pastime,” Bobby Winsler, UT senior, said. Winsler had not heard of the service until just before the 2010 season, and as a Mets fan, jumped all over it.
Many students from the north make their way down to Florida to call UT home. For those baseball fans, it is also a great asset to them.
“Being a northern sports fan, and being down here in Florida, it is nice to be able to watch all the games that I want with no problem at all for a low fee,” Sam Gerb, senior, who is from Connecticut said.
Another great feature, which is available for iPhone and iPod users, is the MLB At- Bat application. Blackberry and Android have also now allowed its users to start using the application. At Bat allows users to pay a small one-time charge of $14.99 and gives them access to listen to live gameday audio of every game.
On top of the audio feature, At Bat allows users to watch live streaming video of one, predetermined, game per day. With this feature the user is able to choose any of eight different camera angles to view the game.
Since we are now in the post-season, anyone who purchased the regular season packages is either out of luck, or forced to pay an additional fee for both features.
For MLB.tv, the post-season package is $19.95 and will include live streaming video of every game, no blackouts. It will also allow viewers to pause, fast forward and rewind the live streaming game.
Other features include: multi-game view, in-game highlights, live game audio and clickable line-scores, batter by batter navigation.
The MLB At Bat application is a much cheaper price at $4.99 for the post-season package. The package will include less features, but will still give a streaming video feed of all post-season games and allow users to view them in quad mode.
Quad mode is a feature that will allow users to watch four games, simultaneously, on their iPhone screen.
New applications and features such as these are only scratching the surface on the way technology is changing how we watch sports. It’s tough to imagine what could possibly be next to make view a sporting event even easier for the viewer.
Kyle Bennett can be reached at minaret.sports@gmail.com.