On Thursday, Al Yellon of SB Nation Chicago and our own Bleed Cubbie Blue dwelled upon MLB Advanced Media's decision to crack down on Cubscast, which, as you might guess, is a Cubs-centric webcast. It's a shame, really: after delivering less-than-perfect quality at the outset, MLBAM has made MLB.tv a great service, and at about $20 a month, a bargain. Simultaneously, though, they've made perplexing decisions from which nobody benefits.
MLB Advanced Media Continues To Shoot Itself In The Foot
Cubscast had several Cubs personalities on its show, including general manager Jim Hendry. It was by no means an enemy of the team; by its very nature, it promoted the Cubs and encouraged fans to go to Cubs games and watch them on TV. I am law-stupid; for the sake of this argument, I’ll assume that MLBAM’s efforts to shut down Cubscast are legally sound. But they aren’t morally sound or business-smart.
As Yellon said, it’s good business sense for a corporation to protect its intellectual property, but surely there is room for moderation if the (technically) offending party is producing something that benefits all parties. Couple this with MLBAM’s recent purging of baseball videos from YouTube, and we have an entity that holds a surprisingly loose grasp on what the Internet is and what it can do.
I would disagree with Yellon on only one point:
MLB has a very bad reputation for doing fan-unfriendly things via both old media (television) and new media (internet). MLBAM’s policies are excluding, not including. And if they keep it up, the young sports fans they profess to want to attract will simply go elsewhere.
The problem, I think, is that if you love baseball, you love baseball, no matter the quality of its purveyors. Young fans came to love baseball before the Internet existed, and I think they’ll still do so under these Draconian policies. Even if MLB remains in the intellectual-property dark ages while the other major sports leagues progress, the fans will still show up.
Indeed, though, MLBAM’s policies are leaving a lot of money on the table, and demonstrating hostility toward those who give you free (and positive) publicity is not only terribly rude, but a poor business decision.
(A firm handshake to Deadspin)
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