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MLB's Internet charge bad news for WFLA-AM

By GREG AUMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 30, 2001

For diehard baseball fans living outside their favorite team's market, some of the best things in life aren't free anymore.

Major League Baseball announced this week it will begin charging for online audio broadcasts. Eleven spring training games (including the Rays, on WDAE-AM 620) were available free Thursday at MLB.com, but beginning Sunday, a season pass costs $9.95.

Before you mail that angry letter to Bud Selig, it isn't as bad as it sounds. If you sign up through MLB.com, you'll get a $10 gift certificate to use at baseball's online store, so you're getting radio access to 2,400-plus games and all you have to do is maybe buy a hat you don't need.

One minor complication, for fans who don't use RealPlayer to listen online: RealNetworks Inc. has agreed to pay MLB $20-million over three years to be its exclusive online audio provider. The company's basic RealPlayer can be downloaded for free in minutes.

Baseball's decision is bad news for WFLA-AM 970, the flagship station of the Devil Rays Radio Network. Operations manager Sue Treccase said when callers would complain about poor reception at the edge of the station's signal, she pointed them to 970wfla.com and raysonradio.com, which aren't options anymore.

"It's not as dramatic as the station shutting down, but philosophically, it's the same kind of thing," she said. "Like a radio station, a Web site's signal is supposed to be up and running 24 hours a day, and now it's going to be down for periods of time, through no fault of our own."

WFLA still can broadcast the Rays' pregame and post-game radio shows online, though Treccase didn't know if the station would do so. Baseball isn't the first sport to charge for audio broadcasts. The NBA has had a subscription-only service for four years, with its "audio league pass" getting bumped up from $20 to $30 this season.

The NFL and NHL do not charge fans for online audio, and NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said the league has no plans to add a subscription service this season.

"Everything on NFL.com right now is free, and I imagine it probably will be during the season," McCarthy said. "We don't want to close the door to anything, but it's not something we're planning."

DATA SPRINGS ETERNAL: Diamond Mind, a company that has created a complex baseball simulation program, put every game of the upcoming season through its computers 50 times and released the aggregate final standings at diamond-mind.com.

The Devil Rays average a 62-100 record, four games behind the Minnesota Twins for baseball's worst record. The projections have Tampa Bay finishing last in the AL in runs scored and runs allowed. Interestingly, the Yankees win the AL East in only 15 of the 50 hypothetical years and miss the playoffs entirely in just as many seasons.

Among the new variables the program takes into account are the new strike zone, stadium modifications and the new "unbalanced schedule." The site isn't so pompous as to forecast the post-season, but it does predict who will get there. Division winners are Boston, Cleveland, Oakland, Atlanta, St. Louis and (surprisingly) Colorado, with the Yankees taking the AL wild card and the Mets, Astros and Diamondbacks finishing within one game of each other for the NL's final playoff spot.

TID-BYTES: If you think Southwest Missouri State's Jackie Stiles came out of nowhere for this weekend's women's Final Four, think again. In ESPN The Magazine's Internet Athlete of the Year voting last summer, she reached the Final Four there, too, eliminating Alex Rodriguez and Vince Carter before losing to eventual champ Lance Armstrong.

- If you have a question or comment about the Internet or a site to suggest, send an e-mail to staff writer Greg Auman at aumanac1@aol.com.

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