MAJOR BLOGS - www.majorblogs.net - Las Vegas, NV - EXCLUSIVE TO MLN Sports - Reid Ryan, President and CEO of Ryan-Sanders Baseball has told MLN Sports this morning that his company will sign on to the Baseball Internet Rights Company (BIRCO). Ryan-Sanders had been one of the biggest organizations that had decided not to particpate in BIRCO during the mid-September voting held by the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues (the NA).

"There's a lot of value there," said Ryan of the organization that was designed to unify minor league baseball on the Internet and provide all of the member clubs with more revenue. "There are still some things that need to be worked out. You have to have it so the teams can keep the look that is theirs, because what works for us is not what may work for Greenville, but the ability to talk to sponsors as one unified group and, there's some real advantages if it's done right."

To that end, Ryan says that he will be putting himself up for nomination for BIRCO's Board of Directors. Round Rock and Corpus Christi have Internet contracts that run through 2009, so the clubs' websites will not join MiLB.com's system fully until 2010.

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding BIRCO. Unanswered questions by MLB-owned Baseball Advanced Media (BAM), MLB.com and MiLB.com's operator, over the last three years and loosely written business agreements with lots of verbal assurances left many owners with concerns and questions (See: "Keep Your Ball on the I," SZ, 09.04.08).

Sanders said that much had been done to improve the contract and that many of the issues that had kept them from signing on to the deal had been resolved.

"But there are still some things to be worked out," reminded Ryan, "and we're going to have to see where some of it goes."

The signing of Ryan-Sanders should be a big step forward for the BIRCO deal which stalled with the vote in mid-September.  Owners of two Houston Astros affiliates, the Triple-A Round Rock Express in the Pacific Coast League, and the Corpus Christi Hooks of the Texas League, their boarding of the BIRCO bandwagon should make it relatively easy to finish the BIRCO deal with little further opposition.

"We made it better, I think, those of us who held back," he said. "I think that we'll see [BIRCO] become a much better thing for all of the clubs."

- Brian ROSS

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