MLB’s Bowman Courts Billions Over Internet
Golden boy Bob Bowman of Major League Baseball’s digital effort is hooking up with Brad Greenspan, the investor best known for his stake in MySpace and an aborted run at buying the Wall Street Journal, to court Chinese baseball fans:
Major League Baseball is using the internet in an effort to pitch the American game to China.
Under a partnership announced on the MLB’s opening day, the US professional baseball league will begin streaming games and offering other content on a Chinese-language website it is creating with BroadWeb-Asia, an internet company backed by Brad Greenspan, an early investor in MySpace.....MLB ranks as the largest streamer of live media of any US media group, and draws 8m-10m visitors to its site each day.
“Digital media can certainly get the game into more people’s hands there – at least in the short term – than traditional television can,” said Bob Bowman, chief executive of MLB Advanced Media, the league’s digital division.
While Japan, Korea and Taiwan send star players to the US, the game is barely played in China.
Bowman has been successful with everything he has touched, with the exception of a brief stint at an internet retailer, but might have to offer someday he simply cannot, in order to get the Chinese on board.
Gambling.
Internet to pitch baseball to Chinese
FT
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