To Visually Impaired Fans, Baseball's New Online World a
Hit
By John M. Williams
The online world of baseball has been expanded to include
individuals with visual impairments after recent improvements to MLB.com, the
official Web site of Major League Baseball, and all 30 individual club sites.
This happened as a result of a joint collaboration among Major League Baseball
Advanced Media, L.P. (MLBAM), the American Council of the Blind, the Bay State
Council of the Blind and the California Council of the Blind. All three
organizations of the blind have applauded this fan initiative taken by
MLBAM.
“MLBAM has undertaken groundbreaking work to make its
Web sites accessible and has assumed a strong leadership position among sports,
media and entertainment properties in doing so,” said Mitch Pomerantz,
president of the American Council of the Blind. “We certainly urge similar
sites to make this level of commitment in following MLBAM’s lead.”
The National Football League, National Hockey League and
National Basketball Association could follow suit.
The agreement was the result of structured negotiations, a
collaborative and solution-driven advocacy and dispute resolution method
conducted without litigation. The discussions involved the three organizations
representing blind people, MLB and noted disability lawyer Lainey Feingold.
Using a baseball metaphor, Feingold said, “MLB.com
stepped up to the plate and grand slammed on this decision.”
As part of its initiative, MLB.com launched an accessible
media center for its MLB.com Gameday Audio™ subscribers, which offers
features such as volume control, the ability to choose the home or away feed
and access to archived games. Additionally, MLB.com has improved its product to
allow fans with visual impairments to continue to participate in the annual
online voting programs associated with the All-Star Game and will provide a
page on its Web site detailing information on accessibility, usability tips and
customer service resources. As it continues to deliver technological
innovations for following baseball games, MLB.com will make additional
accessibility enhancements available to fans with visual impairments.
Brian Charlson, a Boston baseball fan and director of
computer training services at the Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton,
Mass., described how MLB.com’s accessibility efforts have improved his
enjoyment of the game: “As a member of the blind community, the kind of
changes MLB.com was willing to make on its Web sites keeps me coming back for
more. It shows how much can be done when people with disabilities find willing
partners.”
For example, with the changes in Gameday Audio, Charlson
found himself switching back and forth between the home and away broadcasters
the same way his sighted friends do. Knowing that his votes were counted in
last year’s All-Star Game balloting made listening to that game much more
meaningful for him, he said. He is excited about what MLB.com has done and
about its commitment to further improvements.
MLB.com utilized guidelines issued by the Web
Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The Web
content accessibility guidelines are of particular benefit to blind baseball
fans who use a screen reader (through which information on a page is read
aloud) or magnification technology on their computers and who rely on a
keyboard instead of a mouse.
Established in June 2000 following a unanimous vote by the
30 Major League Baseball club owners to centralize all of baseball’s
Internet operations, MLB Advanced Media, L.P. is the interactive media and
Internet company of Major League Baseball. MLBAM manages the official league
site, www.MLB.com, and each of the 30
individual club sites to create the most comprehensive Major League Baseball
resource on the Internet.
MLB.com offers fans the most complete baseball information
and interactivity on the Web, including up-to-date statistics, game previews
and summaries, extensive historical information, online ticket sales, baseball
merchandise, authenticated memorabilia and collectibles, fantasy games, live
full-game video Webcasts and on-demand highlights, live and archived audio
broadcasts of every game, Gameday pitch-by-pitch application, around-the-clock
hosted and specialty video programming, and complete blogging capabilities.
The American Council of the Blind is a national
consumer-based advocacy organization working on behalf of blind and visually
impaired Americans throughout the country, with members organized through 70
state and special-interest affiliates.
The Bay State and California councils are the
Massachusetts and California affiliates of the ACB. The ACB, BSCB and CCB are
dedicated to improving the quality of life, equality of opportunity and
independence of all people who have visual impairments. Their members and
affiliated organizations have a long history of commitment to the advancement
of policies and programs designed to enhance the independence of people who are
blind and visually impaired.
“Many blind people, like myself, are enthusiastic
baseball fans, and so I love this agreement,” said Carolyn Jones.
John Williams is a contributing writer to Independence
Today.
He can be reached at jwilliams@atechnews.com. His Web site
is www.atechnews.com. |
