Major League Baseball pitches cellphone content
With help from a Boston wireless company, Major League Baseball will be offering a greatly expanded menu of news and entertainment for cellphone owners when the new season kicks off next month.
Through a deal with m-Qube Inc. being made public at a big wireless trade show today, baseball fans will be able to get game updates and recaps and news about trades and injuries sent as short messages to their cellphone for $4 a month. Through text messaging, fans can also participate in a new trivia challenge contest whose winner will be awarded the title of ''America's Baseball Genius."
Specially themed ring tones and screen-saver ''wallpapers" for the Red Sox and all 29 other teams will also be offered, such as ring tones using team songs or the traditional ballpark tunes played during the seventh-inning stretch.
Along with the National Football League and National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball has been pushing a growing selection of information and entertainment for the 176 million US cellphone owners.
Last year, for example, baseball offered a live audio broadcast feed of hundreds of games, but only over the Sprint PCS Vision service. A ''First Pitch from Nokia" service offered scores, highlights and news reports, but only on certain models of Nokia phones.
For this season, baseball will offer services to virtually all color-screen phones on all major networks including Cingular Wireless, Verizon, Sprint, Nextel Communications Inc., and T-Mobile USA Inc., all of which have arrangements in place with m-Qube to have content delivered and the price added to their subscribers' monthly bills.
Sports leagues are viewing wireless news and entertainment as a potentially big new profit source, especially services like $2.49 downloads of team logos as cellphone screen savers that cost barely pennies to deliver. ''Providing our fans with easy access to baseball content that connects them to their favorite club and players is an important part of our mission," said George Kliavkoff, senior vice president of business development for Major League Baseball. Financial terms of the m-Qube baseball deal are not being disclosed.
NFL officials project their wireless offerings, which include ring tones with star players shouting ''Pick up your phone, it's game time!" and Pro Bowl all-star voting by cellphone, are on track to equal their current online operations' annual profits of $40 million within three years.
Major League Baseball and m-Qube plan to unveil more details about new wireless offers as the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association trade show gets started in New Orleans today.
Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.
