A 20-minute baseball game? Yes, says RealNetworks

If you do, but don't have time to watch a four-hour marathon, a new Internet service from Seattle-based RealNetworks and Major League Baseball may be for you.

Beginning this season, time-pressed baseball fans will be able to subscribe to an online service that condenses big-league games into 20-minute video packages -- the equivalent of about 85 pitches.

No more time-consuming pitching changes. No more meetings on the mound. No more scratching and spitting.

Nothing but ballgame.

The service -- announced earlier this week under the name Condensed Games -- will be available on Real.com and MLB.com. Only those with RealNetworks software who subscribe will be able to watch the video highlights on their computers. A fee has not yet been set.

Condensed Games may be an efficient way to watch baseball. But some purists say it goes against the slow methodical nature of the game.

"The magic of the game is not that it has to be action-packed, fast-paced and the MTV-generation style of viewing. It is more about the pitcher making that hard stare down the plate and that tension," said Erik Ewers, an editor on Ken Burns' 18-hour TV documentary "Baseball."

"To condense it is like taking away all of those scenes in the movie 'Alien' where the men on the spaceship are walking around in the darkness, and you don't know when the creature is going to strike. If you cut the whole film down to when the creature strikes, it isn't much of a film."

Ewers, a Boston Red Sox fan who describes himself as a moderate Internet user, said he wouldn't pay for the service even though his two kids make it difficult to sit down and watch an entire game.

"When I do watch baseball, I want to take in the ambience of the game," he said.

But Major League Baseball and RealNetworks believe the service not only will appeal to displaced New York Yankees, Philadelphia Phillies or Red Sox fans who live on the West Coast or in the Midwest. They also think it will be used by fans who simply don't have time to watch an entire game, which according to MLB lasted an average of two hours and 54 minutes last season.

"It's as if you taped and magically fast-forwarded to all the good parts," Major League Baseball says in a message on its Web site describing Condensed Games.

But a spokesman for baseball says it's more about helping fans than speeding up America's pastime.

"This is not meant to replace the experience of being in a ballpark nor is it meant to replace the ability to sit and watch a game in its entirety on television," said Jim Gallagher, a spokesman for Major League Baseball's Advanced Media division. "But if you can't get to the ballpark or can't watch a game on television, this is a way to follow your favorite team."

The service -- to be available on opening day, March 31 -- will not undercut baseball's ability to attract fans to stadiums or viewers to TV broadcasts, Gallagher said. That's because all games will be rebroadcast on the Internet 90 minutes after the final pitch.

For RealNetworks -- a software maker whose products are used to watch video and listen to audio over the Internet -- the deal is yet another building block in its effort to broadcast sporting events online and make money off subscription fees. The company also has exclusive agreements with the National Basketball Association and NASCAR.

"Sports is like nothing else in terms of immediacy; you have to watch to see what happens or you have to listen," said Larry Jacobson, president of RealNetworks. "So it makes sense that we would look at sports as a way to drive this distribution channel because it has worked so many times before."

Last year, RealNetworks agreed to pay Major League Baseball $20 million over three years to do live online audio broadcasts.

RealNetworks charged users $9.95 per month to listen to the games, though the offering included access to other professional sporting events and premier content from TV programs such as "Survivor."

As an option, viewers could also pay Major League Baseball $9.95 per month last season to access the games. The price for new users will increase this year, according to Gallagher. He said 120,000 people signed up for the live audio broadcasts through Major League Baseball last season. About half a million users have signed up for RealNetworks' SuperPass subscription service, Jacobson said.

Prior to the agreement between RealNetworks and Major League Baseball, audio broadcasts of baseball games were available for free on the Web sites of many local radio stations. But with online advertising slumping and sports leagues looking to maximize revenues from Internet properties, Jacobson said "subscription is the model that seems to be making a lot of sense."

Condensed Games -- which Jacobson describes as a "premium product" -- will not be part of RealNetworks' SuperPass subscription package.

The price for the service will be announced some time before the baseball season starts this month, he said.

RealNetworks isn't the first Seattle company that has tried to use the Internet to create team-specific highlight shows.

Seattle-based SeasonTicket.com, backed with $4.7 million from Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz's venture capital firm Maveron, set up a similar service with Major League Baseball and other professional sports leagues in early 2000 -- though its online highlight shows were much shorter than the 20-minute rebroadcasts proposed by RealNetworks and Major League Baseball.

After failing to raise additional financing, Seasonticket.com shut down in October 2000.

Jacobson -- a huge baseball fan who counts the Mariners, Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers among his favorite teams -- thinks RealNetworks and Major League Baseball can make Condensed Games work.

While Jacobson said he "loves the pace of baseball," he admits "there is an appetite out there for baseball to be viewed on a more exciting pace."

"Certainly there has been a lot of criticism of the game, particularly with younger viewers that say it doesn't move fast enough. ... We hope this is something that broadens out the demographics and gets people into the game."

P-I reporter John Cook can be reached at 206-448-8075 or johncook@seattlepi.com

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