Microsoft roots for the home team–Windows

Savvy baseball fans have found a way to watch hundreds of games live on the Web for the price of a single stadium ticket. But only if their PCs run Windows.

Microsoft, which just signed an estimated $40 million deal with Major League Baseball for Webcasting rights, is offering the bargain to subscribers of MSN Premium, a subscription-based product that doesn’t work with the Mac or Linux operating systems.

Here’s the deal: Sign up for MSN Premium and you get the first three months free, including access to all video- and audio-casts from MLB.com. After that, you pay $9.95 a month. For the full six-month baseball season, which runs from April to September, that comes to only about $30.

By contrast, Mac users–equipped with their high-resolution “cinema” displays–get stuck paying MLB.com’s regular rate of about $100–70 percent more. MLB.com’s All Access offering, which includes live video and audio, goes for $19.95 a month, or $99.95 a season. MLB.com shuts out Linux customers altogether, at least for now.

News.com