MLB.com to go public at $1B valuation?
The online company behind MLB.com which is jointly owned by all 30 Major League Baseball teams who've invested about $70M in the venture since it was created in 2000, could go public at a valuation of $1B or more according to this New York Times story.
One indication of the success and increased value of M.L.B. Advanced Media is yesterday's announcement that Microsoft's MSN.com site, which reaches 350 million users monthly, will carry various MLB.com audio and video products, for what is estimated to be $40 million over two years. In a separate deal, the baseball company will also be paid $9 million over two years by AOL for some of MLB.com's offerings, including games on audio.
Despite the rapid popularity of MLB.com — which is heavy with statistics, news, photos, video and merchandise — the valuation of at least $1 billion was a surprise to David Card, an analyst for Jupiter Research, which specializes in online and emerging media analysis.
"That smacks of the Internet bubble," he said. "It seems excessive."
MLB.com is not the leading sports site but it has managed to sell a significant number of subscriptions at $14.95 and higher.
According to comScore Media Metrix, which measures traffic to Internet sites, MLB.com was visited by 7.9 million users last July, its peak for 2003. The N.F.L.'s recent peak of 13.9 million (an aggregate of NFL.com and all the team sites) was reached last December. ESPN.com was the undisputed leader, which had 17.5 million visitors last September.
Between 2001 and 2003, MLB.com expanded to offer subscriptions to those who want to listen to radio broadcasts online, or watch live broadcasts. MLB.TV costs $14.95 a month, or $79.95 for the season, and GameDay Audio will cost $14.95 this season, down from $19.95. The company said that it signed up about 500,000 paying subscribers last season for its various products.