For all baseball fanatics—or us suffering fools living with baseball fanatics—this update should come as some relief. You’ll no longer be forced to wander in search of a sports bar willing to tune into your hometown team’s game while traveling; a bit of a problem if you’re a Saint Louis fan vacationing in Florida, for instance. Die-hard MLB fans, your salvation has arrived-- that is if you own an iPhone.

Major League Baseball fans will soon be able to watch games streamed live to their iPhone or iPod touch: all for just .99 a game. As Peter Kafka of Media Memo notes, “As far as I know, that will make baseball the first pro sports league to sell mobile access to live games on an on-demand, a la carte basis.”

Bob Bowman, CEO of Major League Baseball Advanced Media—the MLB’s digital media entity-- talked with Kafka about the new venture. Kakfa explains that the a’la carte games are an add-on to MLB’s popular iPhone app, and they should be available soon, pending Apple's final stamp of approval.

For now, the MLB iPhone app sells for just under $10. So far, it has been downloaded 250,000 times.  While “The current version of the MLB.com app, which sells for $9.99, gives users the ability to watch a couple of live games each day, but MLB.com selects the games.” This new option gives consumers the power of choice.  

The concept of live-streamed sports available for micropayments is an interesting one. I’m curious to see what the demand will be for baseball on the third screen. If demand proves high, expect copycat ventures across sports internationally. It could also help prove consumers' threshold for watching longer-form content on the smaller screen of mobile devices. All those questions aside, if a buck saves me from tuning into scratchy Yankees' radio broadcasts on cross-state drives, I’m all for it. Take the wheel, I'm shelling out. Peanuts and crackerjacks are extra.  Source:  Media Memo, more