Sprint phones to offer baseball games audio

NEW YORK - Baseball fans will soon be able to use their cell phones to take them out to the ballgame. Sprint reached an agreement with Major League Baseball Advanced Media, the sport's Internet wing, to make audio of radio broadcasts available to its subscribers' mobile phones for $5.99 a month.

Under the deal, announced Wednesday, the local flagship station broadcasts will be available for all 30 teams for each game. The service will likely launch in mid-August, Sprint spokesman Dave Mellin said Tuesday.

"Baseball is a game that's a daily game, and your phone is always with you," said Bob Bowman, president of MLBAM. "The thought was, let's give them baseball 24 hours a day. Live baseball is really important to fans. Rather than try to get an update, tune into the Brewers game or tune into the Red Sox game. They want to listen to the third inning. They want to listen to the seventh inning."

While Mellin said Sprint had 45 million subscribers, the technology will be available only to those with Sprint PCS Vision and Power VisionSM phones. He did not have a figure on how many Sprint subscribers had handsets capable of receiving the baseball audio service.

"This is this generation's version of the transistor radio," Mellin said.

Bowman and Mellin said the deal was not exclusive, meaning MLBAM had the right to strike similar agreements with Sprint's competitors.

Sprint has a deal to offer audio and video highlights of NFL games, but not live broadcasts, and also allows fans at NASCAR races to choose camera angles and listen to in-car audio.

(c) Yahoo News