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No doubt, part of Bud’s job is being a politician, and that aspect is probably his biggest weakness. When he sells one thing poorly (his record on PEDs), he feels has to go out of his way to compensate for it. But this is just pointless grandstanding, and better left ignored.

As Craig wrote, “Amazing that Bud didn’t consider this a problem when the CBA was negotiated. Hey Bud: if you’re going to let the Bill Plaschkes and Tracy Ringolsbys of the world dictate your opinions about such things, why don’t you send them to the bargaining table next time?”

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UPDATE: Darren Rovell has more on attendance.

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If there’s a catch, it’s that the two biggest decliners are the Yankees and Mets — as you probably could have figured if you’ve been following this. Both, of course, are due to smaller capacities and exponentially higher ticket prices. So despite the raw attendance declines, both will see massive revenue growth at the gate relative to last year.

If we eliminate those two, the decline shrinks to 4.6%. Still not good, but not catastrophically bad either.

I’ll have more on this on BP later in the week. The key number may not actually be attendance, but ticket prices, which may see big declines in the second half.

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You’ll be able to stream NFL football games this season onto the phone via DirecTV’s “Supercast Mobile” iPhone app and its Sunday Ticket “SuperFan” service.

The app will be free, and video will stream over 3G and wi-fi, but the service is not cheap.

First, you’ll need to be a DirecTV satellite TV subscriber. Then you’ll need the $280 NFL Sunday Ticket subscription. And on top of that, you’ll need a $100 Sunday Ticket “SuperFan” subscription.

That’s a vastly different strategy than MLB has taken. MLB is making a big push to sell packages directly through MLB.com and MLB At Bat, realizing that there’s no point in selling something through a third-party if you can do it yourself. The NFL is just adding a bonus feature for people who are already Sunday Ticket / SuperFan subscribers. In other words, no new customers, and no added reach.

As much as I’ve criticized MLB’s marketing of MLB.tv, the long-term vision is correct: in a completely wireless world, the leagues will be distributing games themselves over the internet. MLB has gotten a good head start on this, while the NFL still seems a bit gunshy.

(Side note: as high as the price is, I’d pay it if I had DirecTV. And I would already have DirecTV, specifically for Sunday Ticket, if I could. But since it doesn’t work in most buildings in Manhattan, and isn’t allowed in most others, I’m still stuck with NFL.com radio. The fact that I still can’t watch Steelers games on cable or online without moving out of the city is just ridiculous, and is an obvious revenue loss for the NFL.)

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• Long-term value going out: Nothing.
• Long-term value coming in: Possibly something.

OK, that seems to work.

My take on Neal Huntington has always been that he’s had the right ideas, surrounded himself with good people, and hasn’t had any giant whiffs. But at the same time, he hasn’t hit any home runs either. Andy LaRoche and Bryan Morris for Jason Bay, Jose Tabata for Xavier Nady, Gorkys Hernandez and company for Nate McLouth — none of these packages are particularly bad, but they’re not particularly good either.

It’s bound to happen eventually. Dave Littlefield traded Brian Giles for Jason Bay and Oliver Perez, which proves that if you make enough deals, a couple of them will turn out well. (A month earlier Littlefield traded Aramis Ramirez for Bobby Hill and Jose Hernandez, so I guess you win some, you lose some.)

Maybe this deal will end up being Neal’s first huge score. And even if it isn’t, it’s still a damn good idea. Milledge has always been a huge wildcard, but he’s at his absolute lowest possible value right now, and Nyjer Morgan is at his highest. This deal would have been laughed off over the winter, even with all of the issues Milledge has had. The Mets were torched for trading him for Brian Schneider and Ryan Church, but that’s a king’s ransom compared to Morgan and Sean Burnett.

The Pirates still have a ton of work to do, and I don’t really expect them to be competitive for a couple more years, at the least. The top line talent isn’t there yet, and other than Andrew McCutchen and Pedro Alvarez, none of their prospects are anywhere near sure-fire big league regulars (and keep in mind, even Pedro is still a bit of a question mark). But the organization has tons more talent than it did two years ago, and that’s a credit to Huntington and his staff, who walked into the emptiest of empty cupboards.

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• The Yankees’ plan will cost $49.95 for the rest of the season, putting it more or less on par with the entire MLB.tv package. The theory is that if you buy MLB.tv, it’s usually to watch one team anyway. That’s probably true, but it isn’t really relevant here, since many people will use MLB.tv as their primary means of watching out-of-market games, while in-market customers will, by rule, already have the games on cable. $100 for a full season is a pretty steep price for what will undoubtedly be a supplemental package.
• BAM gets 50% of all net revenue. That’s higher than I had figured, but it’s tough to say it’s inappropriate considering BAM is supplying 100% of the technology and back-end operations. It sets an interesting precedent though, and I’m sure there’ll be many discussions over this as it gets to be a more and more valuable revenue source.
• It looks like MLB is brokering these deals. That will keep progress relatively slow, and it also decreases competition between teams. There are a few more in the pipeline, with the Padres reportedly next in line (oddly enough). But it could be a while before this is widely available.
• It doesn’t look like this is being integrated into MLB.tv, which I think is a huge mistake from a sales & marketing perspective. Increasing the visibility / availability of both can only help. And discounting a combo package would probably help increase total dollars for BAM, even if the discount had to come out of their end.

If we want to use a nine-inning analogy, we’re just about finishing the national anthem. There’s a long, long way to go, so stay tuned.

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The best solution may actually be to promote MLB.tv through the app. As it stands now, the best they can probably do is to continue to offer a limited slate of games, and try to up-sell from there. But since mobile phones aren’t such a great platform to watch live baseball on, this strategy seems limited. A better approach would be to expand MLB.tv’s capabilities, and create new products that actually leverage the mobile experience. Imagine if you could set up At Bat to notify you, via Apple’s push notification, every time one of your fantasy players was at the plate, and you could instantly watch on your phone.

I’m amazed by fantasy players. In this age of highly-available information and free content, people still pay for “premium” fantasy features. Whether they play in paid leagues or free leagues, lots of people will do just about anything to get an edge.

So it’s a little strange that BAM hasn’t incorporated much fantasy content into At Bat, aside from Beat the Streak. It would be trivially easy to add a player tracker, along with some push capabilities. If nothing else, this would help drive app sales, and would almost certainly increase engagement.

But the bigger opportunity, like I wrote on BP, is upselling MLB.tv through the app. Here’s the approach I would take:

1. Make two games available to everyone each day, like they’re doing now. Make all other games available only to MLB.tv subscribers.
2. Add a player tracker, and allow users to set up alerts when their players are at bat and/or after the at bat is over, with the result.
3. As part of these alerts, offer the option to watch the at bat if the player is involved in one of the free games, or if the user has logged into MLB.tv.

This could quickly become an addicting feature for fantasy players, especially if new users were given a three-day free preview after they download the app. It could also make At Bat an eight-figure revenue generator for the first time.

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