NYT: Major League Baseball to Stream ESPN Events

MLB has created a monster.

ESPN had previously used the services of Move Networks, based in American Fork, Utah. But Move’s system required that customers download a special video player that uses Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, said John Kosner, senior vice president of ESPN Digital Media. The network wanted to make its site easier to use by moving to a supplier that used Adobe’s popular Flash software, which operates within the Web browser.

“Baseball does a terrific job in terms of online video and distribution of their games,” Mr. Kosner said. “They really are the best in class for sport.”

The advanced media unit, an independent company based in New York that has 400 employees, is jointly owned by the 30 professional baseball clubs and Major League Baseball. In addition to the 3,000 baseball games it broadcasts online each season, the company has been slowly branching out into other sports, handling events like the online broadcast for CBS’s March Madness college basketball tournament.

Winning the contract to handle ESPN’s online video business further diversifies the company, and raises the possibility that its owners will one day seek to sell a portion of it to other investors and perhaps change its name, to further distance it from baseball and make its services more appealing to other professional sports leagues.