This is a brief overview of MLB.com including some key stats and facts, most recently related with more details about their mobile applications. I currently view MLB as the single leader at monetising sport through digital channels and I prepared this overview for a work shop I ran for Australian Rugby Union and Cricket Australia.

1. MLB.com Mini Case Study – Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) Version 3.0 – Updated February 2011 Prepared by Martin Walsh Head of Digital Marketing / Producer

3. MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) was backed by all 30 MLB teams

4. Each team would contribute USD$1m per year for 4 years to get the MLBAM startup off the ground

5. Began to make money within 2.5 years which allowed the teams to only invest USD $70-75m in startup costs vs the projected $120m

7. Super Bowl drew in 111m viewers in 2011 while only 14.1m tuned into the 2010 World Series.

8. But, baseball has found increasingly inventive ways to ramp up revenue from:

9. Counter intuitively reducing the number of seats in stadiums

11. game summaries

12. extensive historical information

13. exclusive features about Major League Baseball events and programs

14. forums and message boards

15. blogs

16. on-line ticket sales

17. baseball merchandise

18. authenticated memorabilia and collectibles

19. fantasy games

20. live and archived radio broadcasts of every game

21. live and archived video webcasts of entire games

22. pitch-by-pitch enactment of games

24. MLB.com gets 6-19.4m* unique visitors per month

25. MLB.com sells more than 1.5m annual season subscriptions

26. 1.1 million for live audio and video and roughly 420,000 apps.

27. Streams as many as 6m videos per day

28. On the video front, in 2010 viewers racked up 9.5 billion minutes of streamed ballgames across all devices, including wired.

29. MLBAM now manages online & mobile video content for numerous online affiliates such as NCAA, French tennis Open and ESPN3

30. MLB.com has boosted ticket sales using digital channels

31. tickets used to slide 72 hours before game

32. 27m+ tickets sold online in 2007 (total MLB tickets sold 79.5m)

33. MLB.com accounted for 34% of all ticket sales in 2007 and 2008

34. At least 8 teams now deliver last-minute digital ticket sales to mobiles*There is a dispute between the lower Nielsen numbers and MLB.com’s higher server logs data.

35. The next slide features a video with Major League Baseball Advanced Media (MLBAM) CEO Bob Bowman. Here's Business Insider’s full conversation, including one of the best synopses about what the future of television will REALLY be like……

37. MLB’s iPhone portfolio also includes the GameDay, LiveAudio and LiveVideo applications.

38. The brand's applications have been downloaded more than a million times and 400,000 of the downloads are for paid applications.

39. MLB.com’sWAP site today gets 25 million page views daily, which includes 4 million unique visitors.

41. “We’re trying to get people to use our apps, not ESPN’s apps, and it’s not enough just to say ‘We’re baseball,’” he said. “The notion of a one-minute delay is unacceptable, it has to be now, because people want to be the first to know, they want to see it on their phone before they hear about it on TV.

42. “Another important piece is providing ease of payment, and iTunes plays a key role, but it’s important for billing systems to be user-friendly because it’s a pain in the butt for a lot of people to type on their phones.”“Whereas with subscription products on other channels people might use it once or twice a week, our mobile app consumers use it every day, which is staggering,” Mr. Bowman said. “We’ve seen phenomenal usage levels and it’s because you have the phone with you all the time. “It stays next to you at your bedside table and it’s the first thing you look at in the morning when you wake up,” he said. Robert Bowman is president/CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media

43. The next slide will show a Video review of MLB iPhone, iPad and Android Apps…

45. With the MLB playoffs in full swing, it’s been hard to miss the chatter on Twitter during pivotal moments during games. MLB.com is now tracking all of that action, and compiling it in an interactive inning-by-inning timeline of each game that compiles Twitter buzz alongside video highlights.

46. The result is MLB’s “Pulse” feature which now accompanies the Wrap Up of each game. In addition to the graph for each team’s tweet volume and highlights, you can also see all of the tweets that MLB pulled in, so you can see specifically what people were saying at any point during the game.

47. Over the past few months, MLB.com has worked to develop an intriguing balance of voices who will help emcee the postseason conversation. From award-winning writers like "The Daily Show"'s Paul Mecurio and Marvel icon Matt Fraction to comedian Larry Miller and Olympic superstar Jennie Finch, the cast of daily contributors will be as diverse as it is entertaining.

48. This growing crew will provide the Pulse with instant in-game reactions via live tweets from the stadiums, in addition to interviews from our MLB.com studios for all their postseason analysis and predictions.

49. You'll also have the chance to participate in the conversation yourself.

51. Thank you! mwalsh@reddunefilms.com http://twitter.com/martinwalsh http://www.linkedin.com/pub/martin-walsh/5/503/a77