Now with such success other sports organizations are getting on it as well:

• NBA, works with Turner Broadcasting Systems
• NHL, show game highlights on a YouTube channel (got 20 million viewers) and also have a deal with Slingbox

In Europe they are also slowly getting the hang of it. In Germany, first league soccer club Hannover 96 shows the highlights of their home games 45 min after the match. Also, all their games are archived. They operate with a subscription fee that is available for 3, 6 or 12 months (39 EUR).

After I read this all I think that we will see a new trend here coming up where people will watch more and more archived sports on the web as well. Possibly this could even cut into the premium TV viewing although that might take quite some time still as of now it is additional business. Seeing the above numbers it is obvious that the sports leagues and their associations will over time all move into this possibility. The prime thing that they will watch is that it is an additional business and not one that cuts into their current TV channel sponsorship ad deals, as those are their prime income source, I think. We are just at the beginning of this trend and much more can be done online than just showing archived videos of the games. There will be many more possibilities such as selling Online Ads, taking pictures of fans in the stadium and offering them online for sale, market sports merchandise to name just a few.
It is also clear to me that with such amounts of money at stake they will either do it themselves or work with someone whom they trust because they have the track record such as MLB New Media or large media outlets such as Turner Broadcasting System. Maybe there is some room for innovative very fast-moving new guys as well, probably more so in Europe (e.g. with soccer clubs, handball clubs and their national associations) I think than in the US as there things are already well under way. There is one other big possibility of course that I can think of for newcomers. I will keep that one to myself though but the entrepreneurs out there can read my mind, I am sure...