Thursday, August 2, 2007

If You Can't Beat 'em, Join 'em

MLB hooks up with StubHub to get into the scalped tickets biz.

I'd congratulate Bud on making this deal, but he doesn't deserve the credit. It's an MLBAM thing, yo, and I'm guessing Bud wouldn't understand:

Under the new arrangement, baseball’s interactive company, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, which is partly owned by all the baseball franchises, will get a share of revenues, plus a fee, said Robert DuPuy, president and chief operating officer of the league. He declined to specify the precise revenue sharing of the deal . . .Robert A. Bowman, the chief executive of Major League Baseball Advanced Media, said that the deal with StubHub signals the league’s recognition that the secondary market is in the interest of baseball owners and that it made sense to have a centralized place where fans would feel comfortable conducting their exchanges.


MLBAM has become akin to a license to print money for Major League Baseball. The website gets, like, a billion hits a year and they've learned how to monetize, well, just about everything. Quite an amazing feat for an operation that many thought was a huge risk back when it was cooked up.

Many folks still cling to the notion that the next Commissioner will be a political figure like George Bush or somebody, but I wouldn't be shocked if the job morphed into a CEO position run by a smart guy like Bowman, supported by a V.P. of Baseball Operations to take care of suspending the beanballers and waxing historical when the occasion arises.

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