MLB.com At Bat 2010 Hits It Out Of The App Store

MLB.com at Bat 2010

Baseball's Opening Day may still be a month away, but fans are already snapping up the 2010 edition of MLB.com's "At Bat" application for the iPhone. Since launching in the App Store only yesterday, At Bat 2010 has already become the store's top-grossing app, the top paid sports app and the No. 2 paid app. Almost a triple-play.

The app's rapid rise up the App Store standings is due in no small part to its price hike from $9.99 to $14.99 this year. Considering that most paid apps sell for 99 cents, that puts the MLB.com paid title at the high end of the market. (MLB.com also released the new version of its free At Bat Lite iPhone app yesterday.)

Naturally, a host of new features have been added to the paid version to justify the higher price tag. So in addition to live streaming of games and updated box scores and player stats, MLB.com At Bat 2010 also offers breaking league news, schedules and rosters for every team, a searchable video library by player and team, and "enhanced" video.

MLB.com Tuesday also released its updated app for BlackBerry devices and was slated for release on Android phones on Wednesday. Despite some grumbling about the 50% price increase, iPhone/iPod users posting reviews in the App Store Tuesday gave At Bat 2010 4.5 out of five stars. "Last year, this was hands down my most used app. Not wild about the extra $5.00. But really, it's worth if for something I'll use until October. Go Mariners!" wrote Zak Jerrett, who gave it five stars.

The comment underscores that the app is more a season subscription than a one-time purchase. MLB.com separately charges $19.95 a month or $99.95 a year for its flagship MLB.TV streaming and on-demand Web video service.

Major League Baseball Advance Media, which operates MLB.com, has long been admired in digital media circles for sticking with a paid model from the outset when "free" was taking over the Web. Now it appears to be extending the paid model successfully to the mobile realm via its iPhone and other apps.

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