NEW YORK (Reuters) - Major League Baseball's internet unit plans to announce on Tuesday it has invested in a company that will expand its coverage to 40 international sports, company executives said.
Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P. (MLBAM) plans to take an approximate 10 percent equity stake in the World Championship Sports Network (WCSN) and plans to manage WCSN's Web site.
WCSN's diet of 40 global sports includes track and field, rowing, wrestling and gymnastics and is currently offered on networks such as Comcast Corp.'s regional sports networks in programming blocks.
But the network itself does not currently program its own channel on cable or satellite systems and has relied partially on its Web site to deliver about 150 hours of live event programming over the past three months.
MLBAM, the five-year-old venture jointly owned by the league's teams, expects full year 2005 revenue to rise by 88 percent to $260 million and annual revenue to jump between 30 to 50 percent over each of the next five years.
The WCSN deal represents an expansion of MLBAM's coverage which now relies primarily on baseball.
"There will be more coming," Bob Bowman, MLBAM chief executive told Reuters in an interview, adding sports not played during the summer, when baseball season is in full swing, were likely targets for deals.
WCSN is in negotiations with television distributors, including telephone companies Verizon Communications Corp. and SBC Communications Inc., several cable companies and one of the two U.S. satellite television services provider, Claude Ruibal, chief executive of WCSN told Reuters.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051128/wr_nm/media_mlb_dc;_ylt=Akiui6CRSNlMGop2aGZVDWgjtBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P. (MLBAM) plans to take an approximate 10 percent equity stake in the World Championship Sports Network (WCSN) and plans to manage WCSN's Web site.
WCSN's diet of 40 global sports includes track and field, rowing, wrestling and gymnastics and is currently offered on networks such as Comcast Corp.'s regional sports networks in programming blocks.
But the network itself does not currently program its own channel on cable or satellite systems and has relied partially on its Web site to deliver about 150 hours of live event programming over the past three months.
MLBAM, the five-year-old venture jointly owned by the league's teams, expects full year 2005 revenue to rise by 88 percent to $260 million and annual revenue to jump between 30 to 50 percent over each of the next five years.
The WCSN deal represents an expansion of MLBAM's coverage which now relies primarily on baseball.
"There will be more coming," Bob Bowman, MLBAM chief executive told Reuters in an interview, adding sports not played during the summer, when baseball season is in full swing, were likely targets for deals.
WCSN is in negotiations with television distributors, including telephone companies Verizon Communications Corp. and SBC Communications Inc., several cable companies and one of the two U.S. satellite television services provider, Claude Ruibal, chief executive of WCSN told Reuters.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051128/wr_nm/media_mlb_dc;_ylt=Akiui6CRSNlMGop2aGZVDWgjtBAF;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--
