Bloomberg Technology To Unveil Advanced New Fantasy Baseball Products

Bloomberg L.P., known for its popular and profitable financial software, is dipping its toes in a whole other pool: Major League Baseball.

[Bloomberg president Daniel] Doctoroff was skeptical about entering the baseball market when Jay B. Lee, a Bloomberg product sales manager, and Bo Moon, a business and product manager, suggested it. Lee and Moon were frustrated that they could not find better fantasy league analysis.

“It wasn’t our core business,” said Doctoroff, who was persuaded by prototypes developed by Moon, Lee and Stephen Orban, the research and development manager for Bloomberg Sports.

With baseball management and fandom trending towards more sophisticated analysis, Doctoroff and company recognized an opportunity and seized it, licensing statistics, video, and pitch-by-pitch data allowing them to develop highly complicated and specialized analytical software. Some of this software will only be available to teams for purposes of player evaluation. But other fantasy software will be available to fans on MLB.com as early as next month.

You’ll notice that the New York Times article linked above is from last December. So why bring this up now? Because, while the products will be available soon, Bloomberg is offering a sneak peek for the impatient this Sunday in New York. And while you may be too far away to check it out, representatives from Mets blog Amazin’ Avenue and Nationals blog Federal Baseball will be on hand to soak it all in and see what all the fuss is about. Check back here for their summaries, which will be linked as soon as they’re posted.