Real Networks Could Get Hurt By Baseball Strike As Well
from the collateral-damage dept
Last week there was a post about how Major League Baseball's online subsidiary, MLB.com, might get destroyed by a player strike. Now, the Wall Street Journal is pointing out that a larger entity, Real Networks could face problems from a baseball strike. It seems that broacasting the MLB games is one of the main attractions Real uses to get people to sign up for their RealOne broadcasting service. If MLB disappears, then people might ditch their subscriptions. I'm not so sure this is a huge problem. The season only has a month to go anyway. Were they expecting those same subscribers to kill their subscriptions after the World Series as well? I guess I could see some fans giving up their subscriptions in disgust as they decide to leave the game behind (as many fans are saying they will). Also, I'm sure down the pennant race stretch, many more people usually sign up as new users to the service - so they would take a hit from that. Either way, it's just one more reason why someone should lock the two sides in a room until they come up with a reasonable deal already. I'm sick of these "we met for half an hour and nothing substantial occurred" reports.
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