FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, March 4, 2010
CONTACT
Silvia Alvarez
Bloomberg LP
+1 212 617 3707
salvarez13@bloomberg.net
New York, March 4 – With baseball season fast approaching, Bloomberg, a global leader in analytics, and MLB.com have come up with the most comprehensive, easy to use, online product for baseball fans that any sport has ever seen. Whether you are just a casual fan or trying to win your fantasy league in your frat or sorority or with your roommates, the BLOOMBERG SPORTSTM fantasy tools on MLB.com, are the best way to follow baseball today.
Bloomberg spent nearly two years developing the product with the help of MLB.com’s vast library of historical data. With input from key executives like former Padres general manager and current Yankees consultant Kevin Towers, former Mets general manager Jim Duquette, the Minnesota Twins slugger Jim Thome, and former Cleveland Indians Manager Eric Wedge, the Bloomberg team developed tools that give everyone the ability to come up with an entertaining, interesting way to follow baseball online for the first time. It allows the computer-savvy fan to take a deep dive behind the scenes with their fantasy team or favorite players, while it is also a fun, easily navigable application for more casual fans.
“As someone who has been involved in analytics and loves baseball but has been terrible at fantasy this has been a labor of love,” said Bo Moon, a veteran product manager for Bloomberg and one of the creators of BLOOMBERG SPORTS fantasy tools. “We think we have found a fun and very cool way to marry technology and sports and make baseball easy to follow for everyone, whether you are a die-hard fantasy player looking for a little edge or someone who just wants to understand the game better. Our collaboration with MLB.com brings together the technological innovation that Bloomberg is known for in the business world, with all the numbers that baseball has in its history to give everyone a great experience of the sport, delivered right on their laptops.”
BLOOMBERG SPORTS fantasy tools on MLB.com consist of two products: “The Draft Kit” and “In-Season Tools.” These two products give fans the most powerful capability to prepare and conduct their fantasy draft and make replacements, trades and other decisions for their fantasy teams during the season. The season update tool also will give the casual fan the ability to explore added features and insights about all their favorite players and teams.
Some of the key differentiators for BLOOMBERG SPORTS Fantasy Tools on MLB.com include:
• Interactive draft tools that allow the consumer to create and track player lists.
• Complete, easy to navigate information on every player, including all career data, key splits and the ability to chart customizable stats to see critical trends needed for decisions.
• The best match-up projections and player comparison tools ever built.
• The most compelling, up-to-date and customizable charts, graphs and other visual tools.
In addition to the consumer product now available, Bloomberg and MLB.com also have created The BLOOMBERG SPORTS professional product, provided to Major League baseball clubs with a secure, virtually unlimited set of analytical functions that will assist them in personnel evaluation and performance matchups. It was introduced to the clubs at the Baseball Winter Meetings in December 2009 on a trial basis, and is being tested by a majority of the 30 clubs. Current MLB analysts and former stars like Al Leiter, Ron Darling, and current Milwaukee Brewers pitching coach Rick Peterson have all sampled the product as well, and have raved about its ability to really explain the intricacies and matchups of baseball like never before.
Bloomberg has also assembled a team of top bloggers to pull facts and figures for the fans to follow. The blog team is led by journalist Jonah Keri, and can be seen at bloombergsports.mlblogs.com/, and you can follow all the information on Facebook at: bit.ly/bloombergsportsfb and Twitter at www.twitter.com/bloombergsports.
More details are available at mlb.com/bloombergsports and BLOOMBERGSPORTS.COM.
About Bloomberg
Bloomberg is the world’s most trusted source of information for businesses and professionals. Bloomberg combines innovative technology with unmatched analytic, data, news, display and distribution capabilities, to deliver critical information via the BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL® service and multimedia platforms. Bloomberg’s media services cover the world with more than 2,200 news and multimedia professionals at 146 bureaus in 72 countries. The BLOOMBERG TELEVISION® 24-hour network delivers smart television to more than 240 million homes. BLOOMBERG RADIO® services broadcast via SIRIUS XM Radio and 1worldspaceTM satellite radio globally and on WBBR 1130AM in New York. The award-winning monthly BLOOMBERG MARKETS® magazine, Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine and the BLOOMBERG.COM® financial news and information Web site provide news and insight to business decision-makers. For more information, please visit www.bloomberg.com.
The BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL service and data products are owned and distributed by Bloomberg Finance L.P. (BFLP) except that Bloomberg L.P. and its subsidiaries (BLP) distribute these products in Argentina, Bermuda, China, India, Japan and Korea. BLOOMBERG and BLOOMBERG NEWS are trademarks and service marks of Bloomberg Finance L.P., a Delaware limited partnership, or its subsidiaries. All rights reserved.