Baseball teams to catch news online
Internet syndication service iSyndicate says Major League Baseball will begin using its services to distribute editorial content throughout its network of professional team sites.
iSyndicate's Private Syndication Network will package and distribute breaking news from The Associated Press to professional baseball team sites for the league. iSyndicate will format the stories for viewing on the sites and help filter relevant news articles for each team.
The deal could add more meat to baseball teams' sites and could turn those sites into daily destinations for fans.
Web companies traditionally use content to lure audiences onto their sites and sell advertising real estate. Typically, content providers strike deals with sites themselves, sometimes having to pay highly trafficked sites to host their product.
Internet heavyweights such as America Online and Yahoo have been able to charge content and commerce companies hefty fees for permission to tap into the giants' audiences.
But syndication services such as iSyndicate can help serve as middlemen for content producers that want to gain revenues and exposure. Companies looking to offer their visitors news and information can subscribe to iSyndicate. The service can then offer content providers a network of sites where their editorial products can be viewed.
The deal is also another example of how major sports leagues are turning to the Web to reach fans. The leagues want to create destinations for fans to get information or tune into games for each of their teams.
Just last week, Yahoo inked a deal to broadcast National Football League games over the Web. The agreement would allow fans to tune into local radio broadcasts of games. It targets fans living away from their hometown teams.
In addition, the NFL unveiled an initiative to use USA Networks' e-commerce services to sell tickets and merchandise over the Internet and through TV programming.