MLB.com Announces Its Licensees For 2005

[Tom Kessenich]

For those interested:



NEW YORK, Feb. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- MLB.com, the official website of Major League Baseball, today announced a preliminary list of fantasy game licensees for the 2005 season. As of today, MLB.com's 2005 official fantasy game licensing program will include the following providers: ESPN, Yahoo!Sports, Sportsline, AOL, The Sporting News, STATS, Inc, WhatIfSports, Baseball Manager, MJM Fantasy Sports, Fanstar Sports, Fantasy Sports Reality, All America Fantasy Sports, iTV Entertainment, RotoPlay, Sports Buff, The Fantasy Jungle, Electronic Ballpark, Inc. and Strat-O-Matic. The company said it expects to name several other licensees in the next few days.



At 12:01 a.m. on Thursday, February 17th, fantasy players will celebrate Opening Day of the 2005 fantasy season. At that time, MLB.com and its official fantasy game licensees will begin offering their fantasy game lineups for the upcoming season. In addition, MLB.com and its fantasy partners will offer fans a selection of innovative, fun, exciting and challenging new games starting in March and continuing throughout the 2005 season.



"We are especially pleased that every fantasy game licensee from last year, with only one exception, will be part of the 2005 fantasy game licensing program," said George Kliavkoff, senior vice president of business development for MLBAM, the interactive media and Internet company of Major League Baseball which runs MLB.com and the 30 individual team sites. "In addition, we expect the number of licensees this year to increase more than 50 percent over last year."





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Source: MLB Advanced Media L.P.