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With Major League Baseball’s Opening Day 2009 underway, MLB.com will be using Adobe’s Flash Platform to stream every Major League regular and postseason game live on the Web.
According to a two-year agreement Adobe and MLB.com announced last November, MLB.com selected the Adobe Flash Platform to deliver all of its live and on-demand Web video offerings beginning this season, which officially starts April 6 for most teams. Adobe Flash Media Server software is the video streaming engine behind the games, enabling fans to view live games from their desktops using Flash technology.
MLB.com’s MLB.TV is a paid subscription product, however, the Major League Baseball entity made several of the final pre-season exhibition games available free to users on Friday, April 3 and Saturday, April 4 – including games from the New York Yankees’ new ballpark.
Meanwhile, MLB.com, the official Website of Major League Baseball, also will provide a downloadable rich Internet application (RIA) built using Adobe AIR, so baseball fans can access additional features outside the Web browser, Adobe said.
MLB.com streams live every Major League spring training, regular season and postseason game, more than 2,500 annually, via its subscription offering, which has seen more than 1.5 million total subscribers since its debut on Opening Day 2003. Since that time, fans have accessed more than 1.8 billion streams of live and on-demand multimedia offerings on MLB.com, representing nearly 200 million hours of participation, Adobe officials said.
“With Adobe Flash solutions for playback and live video streaming plus Adobe AIR to experience statistics and highlights outside the browser, we are delivering unprecedented access to every game in the baseball season, and redefining how baseball fans experience their sport,” said Jim Guerard, vice president and general manager of Dynamic Media at Adobe.
“We are excited about this partnership as Adobe provides the scalability, flexibility and reliability that fans expect from MLB.com in delivering them the best live streaming product possible,” said Bob Bowman, CEO, MLB.com. “With the ability to stream broadcast-quality video over the Internet and access a new desktop experience, baseball fans will have more options than ever to watch their favorite teams and players online.”
Adobe officials said Adobe Flash Player is installed on more than 98 percent of Internet-connected desktops. And according to comScore Media Metrix, 81 percent of online videos viewed worldwide are delivered using Adobe Flash technology, Adobe said.