Tweet
Signups are under way for MLB.TV 2012, and Dan Nesbitt has been eagerly awaiting this moment like so many other Major League Baseball fans who watch live out-of-market games anywhere.
Nesbitt is a 25-year-old Tigers fan transplanted in Pittsburgh, where he performs with the Steel City Brass, musicians who play in symphonies worldwide. It just seemed appropriate to let him "trumpet" the virtues of MLB.TV, because you probably will relate to this:
"I've used MLB.TV for the past three or four years, in conjunction with the MLB.com At Bat App for iOS, and it's really a fantastic combination," Nesbitt said in an email to MLB.com. "The multi-platform capabilities of MLB.TV allow me to jump from watching on a PS3 to my iPad or iPhone, and that's one of the best features. I'm a professional musician, and I've been able to follow a big game from a rehearsal or orchestra pit with the iPhone."
Yearly subscriptions are $124.99 for MLB.TV Premium and $109.99 for basic MLB.TV. Both packages will let you watch more than 150 Spring Training games, without blackouts, plus every out-of-market regular-season game live or on-demand, generally in HD quality. Monthly subscriptions to both services will be available starting in March.
This will mark the 10th-anniversary season of MLB.TV, a technology that broke ground when MLB became the first sports league to stream live video broadcasts of its regular schedule, starting with a Rangers-Yankees pilot stream in August 2002. The technology has improved in numerous ways every year in terms of quality and availability, and here are a couple of important new reasons to go with MLB.TV Premium in 2012:
• MLB.com At Bat 12, the top-ranked sports app in the Apple App Store and recent inductee into the Macworld App Hall of Fame, will be included with your subscription at no additional cost. At Bat is due to launch on Feb. 29. At that time, download the app and then your MLB.TV subscription will be authenticated, so you can enjoy complete mobile portability to iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and most Android phones and tablets (a $14.99 value).
• MLB Advanced Media continues to listen to fans' needs regarding usage habits, whether watching live on your favorite mobile, online or connected device. Now you will be able to add another major platform to the list: Xbox. This feature will be coming when games begin, and at that time you will simply log in with your MLB.TV username and password to access live and on-demand baseball. A real game is even better than a video game.
"I'm a diehard Tigers fan, and since moving out of state several years ago, MLB.TV has allowed me to keep up with the games," said Nesbitt, whose wife promised him the 2012 package as a birthday present on Tuesday. "I travel quite a bit, all over the country, and with my mobile devices, I'm able to access that account anywhere, which is absolutely the most valuable thing about MLB.TV, and worth every penny of the subscription."
Jon Campbell is an A's (and Tigers) fan in Sacramento, Calif., and he is ready for his third season of MLB.TV. He has a 3 a.m. PT watch party planned at his house for March 28, because that is the first of two games Oakland plays against Seattle to officially christen the regular season at Tokyo.
"That is made possible because of my MLB.TV package," Campbell said. "I originally signed up because I want to watch baseball without the giant, cumbersome cable bills that usually come with the bundled packages traditional cable and satellite companies force you to subscribe to to get the programming you actually want. ... I enjoy the great coverage during both the regular season and the postseason. With MLB.TV I can watch games on the go on my laptop, listen to the great local radio coverage of various Major League teams throughout the country, or watch the games on my big-screen television through my Apple TV."
Campbell added that when the regular season gets under way, "I will watch an average of three games per day, making the cost of MLB.TV pennies per hours entertained."
MLB.TV Premium lets you choose between home or away broadcasts. DVR Controls allow you to pause and rewind live games. Multi-game View lets you watch two games at once in picture-in-picture mode or split screen. With Quad View, watch up to four games or highlights at once.
Both packages give you in-game highlights and stats update automatically in the media player. Full-game archives and condensed games are available. You'll have access to Gameday Audio and the Pitch by Pitch App, which includes PITCHf/x and batter/pitcher tendencies. Managing a fantasy roster is easier because you can watch live at-bat look-ins of your players.
Twitter is incorporated, so watching live games is always a social event as well. Use the official team hashtags when you tweet, and be sure to follow @MLBTV for ongoing updates.
If you want to watch Minor League prospects throughout the season, then consider bundling an MiLB.TV subscription with your MLB.TV signup. MiLB.TV is normally $39.95 yearly, but it costs just $20 if you bundle it with an MLB.TV subscription. The monthly MiLB.TV bundle price will be $5 (available in March), half the normal monthly cost. You'll get access to more than 2,500 additional baseball games, including nearly every Triple-A game, live online. MiLB.TV will be available when the Minors get under way on April 5.
For fans who want only Gameday Audio, signups are under way for a yearly cost of $19.99. You will be able to listen to 150 Spring Training games live online, plus every regular-season and postseason game, all with no blackout restrictions. You can choose from home, away or alternate feeds (where available), and listen to full-game archives.
Tony Marks is public relations manager for the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, and he became an MLB.TV subscriber for the first time in 2011. You can thank the Rangers' World Series runs for that.
"It wasn't enough to root for them from another state. I didn't want to miss a game. I wanted to follow them and support just like a local," Marks said.
"I played baseball as a kid, listened to it on the radio when I studied in college, and caught as many games on TV as I could. Streaming stats doesn't do it for me. I love to hear the game. As my home and career life got busier, it became harder for me to watch in real time. With MLB.TV, my wife and I don't fight over the TV when a game's on, and I can catch a game even if it's hours -- or days -- later."
Now a tradition returns: that first chance for millions of fans to sign up for MLB.TV, watching any of the on-demand 2011 games as a refresher and then just waiting for those first pitches from Florida and Arizona to get it all started again.
"What makes signing up again this season so special is that I now have a 6-week-old son," Marks said in his email. "And Saturdays are Daddy-days. So I'm looking forward to cuddling up with him as we check in on how the Rangers are doing each week. I promise to watch other games as well in case he decides he prefers another team -- just not the Yankees. A dad's got to draw the line somewhere."
Nesbitt is a 25-year-old Tigers fan transplanted in Pittsburgh, where he performs with the Steel City Brass, musicians who play in symphonies worldwide. It just seemed appropriate to let him "trumpet" the virtues of MLB.TV, because you probably will relate to this:
"I've used MLB.TV for the past three or four years, in conjunction with the MLB.com At Bat App for iOS, and it's really a fantastic combination," Nesbitt said in an email to MLB.com. "The multi-platform capabilities of MLB.TV allow me to jump from watching on a PS3 to my iPad or iPhone, and that's one of the best features. I'm a professional musician, and I've been able to follow a big game from a rehearsal or orchestra pit with the iPhone."
Yearly subscriptions are $124.99 for MLB.TV Premium and $109.99 for basic MLB.TV. Both packages will let you watch more than 150 Spring Training games, without blackouts, plus every out-of-market regular-season game live or on-demand, generally in HD quality. Monthly subscriptions to both services will be available starting in March.
This will mark the 10th-anniversary season of MLB.TV, a technology that broke ground when MLB became the first sports league to stream live video broadcasts of its regular schedule, starting with a Rangers-Yankees pilot stream in August 2002. The technology has improved in numerous ways every year in terms of quality and availability, and here are a couple of important new reasons to go with MLB.TV Premium in 2012:
• MLB.com At Bat 12, the top-ranked sports app in the Apple App Store and recent inductee into the Macworld App Hall of Fame, will be included with your subscription at no additional cost. At Bat is due to launch on Feb. 29. At that time, download the app and then your MLB.TV subscription will be authenticated, so you can enjoy complete mobile portability to iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and most Android phones and tablets (a $14.99 value).
• MLB Advanced Media continues to listen to fans' needs regarding usage habits, whether watching live on your favorite mobile, online or connected device. Now you will be able to add another major platform to the list: Xbox. This feature will be coming when games begin, and at that time you will simply log in with your MLB.TV username and password to access live and on-demand baseball. A real game is even better than a video game.
"I'm a diehard Tigers fan, and since moving out of state several years ago, MLB.TV has allowed me to keep up with the games," said Nesbitt, whose wife promised him the 2012 package as a birthday present on Tuesday. "I travel quite a bit, all over the country, and with my mobile devices, I'm able to access that account anywhere, which is absolutely the most valuable thing about MLB.TV, and worth every penny of the subscription."
Jon Campbell is an A's (and Tigers) fan in Sacramento, Calif., and he is ready for his third season of MLB.TV. He has a 3 a.m. PT watch party planned at his house for March 28, because that is the first of two games Oakland plays against Seattle to officially christen the regular season at Tokyo.
"That is made possible because of my MLB.TV package," Campbell said. "I originally signed up because I want to watch baseball without the giant, cumbersome cable bills that usually come with the bundled packages traditional cable and satellite companies force you to subscribe to to get the programming you actually want. ... I enjoy the great coverage during both the regular season and the postseason. With MLB.TV I can watch games on the go on my laptop, listen to the great local radio coverage of various Major League teams throughout the country, or watch the games on my big-screen television through my Apple TV."
Campbell added that when the regular season gets under way, "I will watch an average of three games per day, making the cost of MLB.TV pennies per hours entertained."
MLB.TV Premium lets you choose between home or away broadcasts. DVR Controls allow you to pause and rewind live games. Multi-game View lets you watch two games at once in picture-in-picture mode or split screen. With Quad View, watch up to four games or highlights at once.
Both packages give you in-game highlights and stats update automatically in the media player. Full-game archives and condensed games are available. You'll have access to Gameday Audio and the Pitch by Pitch App, which includes PITCHf/x and batter/pitcher tendencies. Managing a fantasy roster is easier because you can watch live at-bat look-ins of your players.
Twitter is incorporated, so watching live games is always a social event as well. Use the official team hashtags when you tweet, and be sure to follow @MLBTV for ongoing updates.
If you want to watch Minor League prospects throughout the season, then consider bundling an MiLB.TV subscription with your MLB.TV signup. MiLB.TV is normally $39.95 yearly, but it costs just $20 if you bundle it with an MLB.TV subscription. The monthly MiLB.TV bundle price will be $5 (available in March), half the normal monthly cost. You'll get access to more than 2,500 additional baseball games, including nearly every Triple-A game, live online. MiLB.TV will be available when the Minors get under way on April 5.
For fans who want only Gameday Audio, signups are under way for a yearly cost of $19.99. You will be able to listen to 150 Spring Training games live online, plus every regular-season and postseason game, all with no blackout restrictions. You can choose from home, away or alternate feeds (where available), and listen to full-game archives.
Tony Marks is public relations manager for the Tennessee Performing Arts Center in Nashville, and he became an MLB.TV subscriber for the first time in 2011. You can thank the Rangers' World Series runs for that.
"It wasn't enough to root for them from another state. I didn't want to miss a game. I wanted to follow them and support just like a local," Marks said.
"I played baseball as a kid, listened to it on the radio when I studied in college, and caught as many games on TV as I could. Streaming stats doesn't do it for me. I love to hear the game. As my home and career life got busier, it became harder for me to watch in real time. With MLB.TV, my wife and I don't fight over the TV when a game's on, and I can catch a game even if it's hours -- or days -- later."
Now a tradition returns: that first chance for millions of fans to sign up for MLB.TV, watching any of the on-demand 2011 games as a refresher and then just waiting for those first pitches from Florida and Arizona to get it all started again.
"What makes signing up again this season so special is that I now have a 6-week-old son," Marks said in his email. "And Saturdays are Daddy-days. So I'm looking forward to cuddling up with him as we check in on how the Rangers are doing each week. I promise to watch other games as well in case he decides he prefers another team -- just not the Yankees. A dad's got to draw the line somewhere."
channels and the mlb netwrok channel so thats enough to keep me happy.
Comment