One of digital media's best kept secrets is this company in Manhattan that was built for baseball

Bryce Harper
MLB games and more are streamed through MLB Advanced Media. Reuters

What do Major League Baseball, wrestling's WWE Network, Glenn Beck's TheBlaze TV, and HBO's new streaming service all have in common?

Advertisement

The video for all of these services is handled out of an old cookie factory on the west side of Manhattan.

MLB Advanced Media, also known as MLBAM, is Major League Baseball's technology division. It was started in 2005 to run the websites of MLB teams, but it's since morphed into a huge provider of digital services for many other companies.

MLBAM delivers the live video for Sony's new live TV service, PlayStation Vue, as well as for streaming services from the PGA and ESPN.

The company also develops games and apps. 

Advertisement

On Tuesday, MLBAM said it had reached an agreement with the NHL to broadcast out-of-market hockey games. According to the Wall Street Journal, the MLB has plans to spin off the division into a separate company.

Tech Insider visited MLBAM's growing office in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood to see how it all works earlier this summer.

Check it out: 

Advertisement

MLB Advanced Media's (MLBAM) headquarters are located in Chelsea Market, a historic building in downtown New York.

Chelsea Market 2
Chelsea Market

Google has offices right across the street and in the same building as MLBAM.

MLBAM office 28
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider
Advertisement

Let's go inside.

Chelsea Market 3
Chelsea Market

Here are some of the other companies with offices in the building.

MLBAM office 27
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider
Advertisement

A century ago, the building was home to National Biscuit Company.

Chelsea Market 4
Chelsea Market

According to The New York Times, both the Oreo and Mallomars were invented here

Now, it's a destination for tourists and New Yorkers, with dozens of restaurants, bakeries and specialty shops on the ground floor, and offices on the upper levels.

The MLBAM offices first opened in 2005.

MLBAM office 26
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

Now, MLBAM has office space on four floors.

Advertisement

The office has baseball-themed decor throughout.

MLBAM office 25
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

Even the elevator is decorated with a huge baseball and two bats. 

Advertisement

MLBAM won an Emmy in 2014 for technology and engineering for streaming video.

MLBAM office 22
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

The staff is apparently pretty good at softball, too.

MLBAM office 21
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

These are some of the trophies MLBAM softball teams have won.

Advertisement

Here's one of the broadcast studios at the MLBAM headquarters.

MLBAM studio 1
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

Analysts and guests who sit here can can talk to players, reporters, and officials on the field.

Here's what it looks like when you're sitting at the studio desk.

MLBAM studio 2
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

The cameras are operated remotely.

Advertisement

Sometimes they broadcast concerts from this studio.

MLBAM studio 3
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

The Roots, John Legend, Rihanna, Sheryl Crow, and Trey Songz, among many others, have performed here.

The robotic cameras in the studio are controlled from in here.

MLBAM Control Room
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider
Advertisement

Here's another view of the control room for the broadcast studios.

MLBTV Control Room 7
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

Streams from different cameras are all viewable in the control room.

MLBTV Control Room 8
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider
Advertisement

Lots of employees here, of course, are baseball fans.

MLBAM Baseball Quotation
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

The company's gaming division is also located here.

MLBAM RBI
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

This team worked on RBI Baseball '14.

Advertisement

This MLBAM employee is testing a game on Xbox One. Yes, part of his job is to play video games.

MBLAM Gaming 3
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

One of the six data centers MLBAM has in the US is located in the Chelsea Market office.

MLBCom Data Center
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider
Advertisement

This is the transmission operations center. Each screen shows a different live stream handled by MLBAM.

MLBTV Control Room
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

The center can handle around 100 streaming events simultaneously.

 

These are some of the producers and engineers working in the transmission center.

MLBTV Control Room 5
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider
Advertisement

MLBAM handles video for many different streams, including WWE Network, Glenn Beck's TheBlaze TV, HBO Now, ESPN, Sony's PlayStation Vue network, and more.

MLBTV Control Room 6
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

There's an entire room dedicated to testing video on various devices.

MLB connected device
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider
Advertisement

Inside the Connected Device Lab. MLBAM employees have to make sure that video works on many different devices.

MLBTV Device Room
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

 

 

This room used to be an oven used to bake cookies.

MLBAM Screen
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

If you look at the brick wall above the TV, you can see the remnants of ovens from when this building was used as a cookie factory. 

Advertisement

Producers working in the rooms where cookies were once baked.

IMG_5428.MLBTV Control Room 12
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

There's baseball stuff everywhere!

MLBAM office 6
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider
Advertisement

MLBAM also handled live video for some of President Obama's 2012 campaign events.

MLBAM office 7
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

This is the logging room, where a team of people watch live events and record what happens during them.

MLBAM office 11
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

Logging creates a record of what happens during an event, like a baseball game, which makes it easier for customers to find specific moments.

Advertisement

An MLBAM employee watches live streams of a baseball game and logs different events, like pitches, balls, strikes, etc.

MLBAM office 10
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

This is the MLBAM mobile department, which began in 2005 with only two employees, both of whom still work there.

MLBAM office 15
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider
Advertisement

Now there are roughly five or six dozen people working on the MLBAM mobile experience, including app development, design, and customer service.

MLBAM office 17
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

Here's where they work on MLB At Bat, the official app of Major League Baseball.

MLBAM office 16
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

MLB At Bat features baseball news, stats, video, and more.

Advertisement

The home of the MLB social media team.

MLBAM office 20
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider

Some of the MLB.com editors at work.

MLBAM office 23
Tim Stenovec/Business Insider
Advertisement
Close icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.