Top of the First (8/9/06) – Groundbreaking for New Yankee Stadium Set, Sprint and MLBAM Deal To Offer Game Audio via Cell Phone, More On CBC Court Victory
8th August 2006
Here’s tomorrow’s business of baseball news today for 8/9/06. On the CBC (CDM) ruling, see the detailed link below that offers links to the Opinion and Conclusion by Judge Mary Ann Medler in PDF format. I have tentatively been scheduled to speak on XM 175’s Fantasy Focus show at 12:25 PM EST on this important ruling.
Groundbreaking set for new Yankee Stadium : The AP
The New York Yankees will break ground Aug. 16 for their new ballpark adjacent to Yankee Stadium.
The team, which has played at Yankee Stadium since 1923, set the date Tuesday. It hopes to move to the new 53,000-seat ballpark for the 2009 season, and the new stadium is projected to cost at least $800 million.
Audio of MLB games to be offered on Sprint cell phones : By Ronald Blum : The AP
Baseball fans will soon be able to use their cell phones to take them out to the ballgame.
Sprint reached an agreement with Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the sport’s Internet wing, to make audio of radio broadcasts available to its subscribers’ mobile phones for $5.99 a month.
Under the deal, scheduled to be announced Wednesday, the local flagship station broadcasts will be available for all 30 teams for each game. The service will likely launch in mid-August, Sprint spokesman Dave Mellin said Tuesday.
Judge: Fantasy leagues allowed to use MLB player names, stats : By Jeff Douglas : The AP
Fantasy baseball leagues are allowed to use player names and statistics without licensing agreements because they are not the intellectual property of Major League Baseball, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
Baseball and its players have no right to prevent the use of names and playing records, U.S. District Court Judge Mary Ann Medler in St. Louis ruled in a 49-page summary judgment.
St. Louis-based CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc. filed a lawsuit against Major League Baseball Advanced Media, MLB’s Internet wing, after CBC was denied a new licensing agreement with the baseball players’ association giving it the rights to player profiles and statistics.
No License Is Required to Run a Fantasy League : By Alan Schwarz : The NY Times
Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the Internet arm of Major League Baseball, had a major setback yesterday in its attempt to regulate the growing fantasy baseball industry when a federal judge ruled that companies do not need licenses to operate such leagues.
A St. Louis company that runs fantasy leagues, CBC Distribution and Marketing Inc., had sued Major League Baseball Advanced Media, saying that the players’ names and performance statistics were in the public domain.
Four weeks before the trial was set to begin, United States District Court Judge Mary Ann Medler upheld CBC’s argument in a 49-page summary judgment. She rejected baseball’s claim that the use of the players’ names in commercial fantasy leagues violated their rights of publicity. She also ruled that even if CBC’s repetition of purely factual information had violated those rights, it was was trumped by the United States Constitution.
“The players’ right of publicity,” she wrote, “must give way to CBC’s First Amendment right to freedom of expression.”
According to the Fantasy Sports Trade Association, more than 15 million people spend about $1.5 billion annually to play fantasy sports — games in which fans draft and run their own teams of real-life players. Virtually all of them use an outside service like CBC to keep track of rosters, players’ statistics, trades and more.