Baseball is Good For Mobile Video
Every day, more and more Americans are viewing video on their mobile handsets. From 2008 to 2009 second quarter, there was a 70% year over year increase in mobile handset viewing. According to new data issued by the Nielsen Company, Mobile viewing averaged a total of 3 hours and 15 minutes per month in Q2. By comparison, internet video averaged 3 hours and 11 minutes with home viewing at a staggering 141 hours!
Men make up 59% of mobile viewers which could explain why sports dominates the mobile video landscape. ESPN is not lost on this, and in fact averages about 75 mobile video clips per day along with complete episodes of some network broadcasts. According to ESPN media heads, the fact that users are willing to pay for mobile content over PC content, several new opportunities open up.
Also on the mobile video bandwagon is Major League Baseball. It has an application for the iPhone and iPod touch called At Bat 2009. These out of market live game broadcasts are available through this app at a price of 99 cents per matchup . This is in addition to MLV TV Premium subscribers who enjoy iPhone access to all major league games for $19.95. Major league baseball it seems is doing for sports buffs what iTunes did for music fans.
