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On February 9, two of America’s premium sports

leagues made an agreement. MLB.TV agreed with the National Hockey League (NHL) that they were going to be partners in a television package that would combine their two products into one subscription.

According to a press release, the deal will start on

February 16. Among the games included in the agreement are over 100 Spring Training games, the first two rounds of the World Baseball Classic, every regular season game and up to 40 out of market NHL games and some playoff games.

This program will be available for a one time fee of $139.95. This is about $40 cheaper than if a fan were to purchase each of the two individual packages separately. Most of the viewing in this agreement would be done online through the league’s respective websites.

According to MLB.com President Bob Bowman, the partnership is “an important initial step in the future of online subscription programming for valuable content providers.”

MLB.TV is currently in its seventh season and has over a million total subscribers. The company plans to feature significant upgrades to their product in 2009 to make fans more likely to purchase the package. These new upgrades include DVR functionality, multi game viewing options and home and away feeds for every game on the network.

MLB.com was first established in 2000 to centralize all of the MLB’s internet operations. They have continued to grow since that time and their features of MLB.TV brought in over 500,000 subscribers during the 2008 season.

Bill Jordan is a contributor to BaseballReflections.com. He can be reached by e-mail at BillJordaniv@yahoo.com.

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