The changeup. By Ben Popper. It was the first week of April, 2. New Yorks Chelsea Market, typically packed with hordes of noisy tourists, was quiet. It was close to midnight, but five stories above, things were tense. The building is a former cookie factory, and the outlines of ovens still scar the brick walls. In their place, a vast array of screens are now mounted, each tuned to a live video feed. Joe Inzerillo and his team had their eyes glued to the glass, hard at work trying to wrangle the internet into doing something it was not built for. The launch of HBO Now was just a few days away, but the product wasnt finished. With both HBO and Apple promoting it heavily, the team had no idea how many people might tune in that first day. The stakes were high, says Inzerillo. It was not lost on anybody here how important this was for our company, but also for this industry. Because if HBO Now had come out and face planted, there would be a lot of naysayers who turned around and said, See, this is why the adults need to handle television. Game of Thrones is our World Cup. Six months earlier, HBO had announced it was cutting the cord, finally offering consumers access to their programming without signing up for cable or satellite television. But the in house streaming service it had previously built, HBO Go, had experienced high profile outages during the season four finale of Game of Thrones and the premiere of True Detective. HBO Now was set to launch alongside the newest season of Go. T, and it had to be perfect. Game of Thrones is our World Cup, says Bernadette Aulestia, who runs HBOs digital distribution. And so HBO went to the company that set new records for online streaming during the 2. World Cup, a strange tech startup hidden inside of a sports league, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, or BAM for short. BAM began as the in house IT department for the leagues 3. But over the last 1. BAM has emerged as the most talented and reliable name in streaming video, a skill set suddenly in very high demand. BAM competes for clients with streaming tech companies like Neu. Lion and Imagine Communications, as well as big telecommunication outfits like Verizon. But, says Dan Rayburn, a streaming industry analyst, there really isnt anybody who does the true end to end solution like MLB does, especially at scale, out in the market. Their technical chops are the best, bar none, he adds. US&size=600x400' alt='Watch The Change-Up Online Hulu' title='Watch The Change-Up Online Hulu' />The solar eclipse is rapidly approaching and, for the towns that happen to be in the narrow 70mile band of best observation, this means gearing up for quite the. Jake Elliott, Actor Love. Jake Elliott is an actor, known for Love 2016, 2 Broke Girls 2011 and How I Met Your Mother 2005. MovieScoutTV-e1389988046123.png' alt='Watch The Change-Up Online Hulu' title='Watch The Change-Up Online Hulu' />They set the standard. The internet, as a technology, was never designed to do something like this. HBO didnt give BAM much time. It was a full on sprint for the three and half months that we had, says Inzerillo. As the clock ticked down, the crew from BAM ran through countless disaster scenarios. What people forget is that the internet, as a technology, was never designed to do something like this deliver flawless video simultaneously to millions of people. Inzerillo explains. I liken it to trying to live on Mercury. The planet is completely inhospitable. Every day all youre doing is fighting a battle for survival in a place that really does not want you. Streaming video on the internet is sort of like that. On April 1. Game of Thrones season five premiere, as well as the launch of HBO Now, were flawless. Today, BAM cemented its status as one of the most important players at the intersection of sports, media, and technology, announcing that it will be powering the mobile, web, and television offerings from the National Hockey League. Its the first time BAM has been fully embraced by another major league. When you have HBO going over the top and Bob Igers talking about ESPN going over the top, Viacoms networks are being kicked off cable, we had a real gut check, says John Collins, the NHLs chief operating officer. BAM can help us dictate what happens to our content in a time when this media landscape is going through a lot of change. Like the deal with HBO, BAM will power the leagues streaming services. But the deal goes even further BAM will be a rights holder of NHL content they can package and sell to an online audience. Its groundbreaking to have two leagues doing a rights deal, says Collins. BAM recently forged a similar arrangement with the PGA. The new approach moves BAM beyond just a white label service provider, putting them in position to become an ESPN of the internet age, competing against the likes of Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon with the one thing all those services lack live sports. Theres just one catch. To make it all work, BAM has to grow beyond baseball. Watch The Change-Up Online Hulu' title='Watch The Change-Up Online Hulu' />What is CBS All Access How to Subscribe for a Free Trial October 12th 2017. The announcement of BAMs partnership with the NHL. From left to right NHL Chief Operating Officer John Collins, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, MLB President, Business, Bob Bowman. In late July, I met Bob Bowman, BAMs CEO, in the companys office above Chelsea Market. We sat in a small conference room past a wall of trophies and a social media center blasting out baseball highlights across Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook, and You. Watch Online Watch Die Gezeichneten Full Movie Online Film. Tube. Bowman has CEO caliber hair, swept up and to the right, in a dignified grey he dresses in banker casual khakis, boat shoes, and collared shirt unbuttoned at the top. On the whiteboard behind him, scrawled in black marker, was a warning INVESTORS GET FED PIGS GET SLAUGHTERED. Bowman is a man with 3. MLBs technical abilities. Watch Criminal Megavideo. He has to navigate between traditional broadcasters, cable companies, and fans who want their game on any screen with an internet connection. He has perfected the art of partnerships that hinge on give and take. When I ask him the significance of the quote, he says its a reminder not to build your own business at the expense of people who pay you. INVESTORS GET FED PIGS GET SLAUGHTEREDFor years, BAM was a name known only to industry insiders, a sharpshooter organization called in to make sure the big game or series premiere streamed without fail. Over time, it forged long term deals with clients like WWE and Sony Playstations Vue network. Now its moving from powering the platform to co owning the content as well. But its increasingly clear that to really capture the opportunity in front of it, BAM needs to become more independent. BAM doesnt run like a startup it doesnt have equity to share with employees, causing it to lose out on talented engineers and developers that want upside beyond a salary. It also cant easily raise outside capital to compete against rising competitors like Twitch or Ooyala while its still a central part of baseballs day to day operations. The idea of spinning BAM out to create a new company has been floated for years, but in the last few months it has hardened into a certainty. Todays announcement that the NHL will invest in this new venture makes it a fact. Lawyers and bankers are finalizing the details, and Bowman is in active discussions with other potential investors, poised to run a new company with a valuation north of 5 billion. As everyone thinks about going over the top, about building out a global business, we are looking for a partner to help us double or triple this business, says Bowman. Things have been going fine, but to not move on this now, we lose the opportunity to get really, really big. When baseballs then commissioner, Bud Selig, created BAM back in 2. The unit would be in charge of creating websites for each of the teams and consolidating MLBs digital rights. By pooling resources, he would prevent the bigger teams from outpacing their smaller market rivals.