Major League Baseball imposes online restrictions

Lost Remote's Cory Bergman: "Major League Baseball is instituting new restrictions for web content. Websites will now be held to two minutes of video (or audio) a day gathered at MLB facilities — but formal press conferences are exempt to this rule. Similar to the NFL, there’s no live streaming. But in an unique twist, sites will be limited to 7 photos per game. And no photo galleries, either (it’s unclear what they mean by that.) All non-text content must be removed after 72 hours. If you don’t follow the new rules, your press passes could be revoked. The Sports Business Journal has the story here, but a subscription is required."

Paranoid Theory #1: MLB (and NFL) want to control their content from creation all the way to the end user (the fan). They foresee a time when they don't need TV and radio networks to broadcast games and related events. It will all be streamed directly to a mobile device. MLB/NFL will keep all related fees and/or advertising. Media outlets that want to cover these events, will do so on MLB/NFL terms.