I saw this Business Insider article linked by The Unofficial Apple Weblog: “MLB Nearing $1 Million In iPhone Revenue.”
[Major League Baseball] tells us it’s sold 130,000 copies of the $10 app so far this year. That translates to about $1.3 million in gross revenue. After Apple’s 30% cut, MLB’s take is about $910,000 so far with five months left in the season.
The app is a bit pricey, but if you’re a baseball fan, the app is definitely worth it. I’m not much of a sports fan (even though I work at the worldwide leader in sports), but I grew up watching, listening to, and attending Cleveland Indians baseball games. After not following the team for the last few years, I decided this year, I would. In order to stay in touch with their games, I decided to invest in the MLB At Bat app (iTunes link) for my iPhone.
For a baseball fan, this app has a large amount of stats and other information. For instance, you see a lineup of the games being played for any given day.
For any in-play game, you can see detailed information about the game, like pitch-by-pitch recaps:
Or on-field lineups:
You can also see the box score of the game:
And view video highlights of the game:
Finally, you can see stats for a particular player:
And view standings:
None of these features, however, were the selling point for me. Instead, my selling point was the ability to listen to a live radio broadcast of either the home or away team for any game. When I learned I could listen to Indians radio broadcaster Tom Hamilton via my iPhone, I had to have this app (if you’re from Cleveland and know Tom’s talent for calling a game and his animated excitement on those long fly balls, you’ll understand my nostalgia for listening to him on the radio).
Again, solid app, and definitely worth the purchase if you’re a baseball fan. If you’re like me, though, perhaps being able to listen to your hometown radio broadcaster is worth the purchase. In fact, as I write this, I’m listening to Tom Hamilton call the Red-Sox/Indians game live. Terrific!
