Two high-profile deals between Major League Baseball and Microsoft and America Online have quietly been scrapped, raising questions about the value of exclusive sports programming rights on the Internet. Microsoft on Monday confirmed that it ended a two-year deal to offer live video and audio broadcasts of Major League Baseball games to its MSN Premium subscribers. Under the agreement, which was inked last year, Microsoft was supposed to pay the league an estimated $40 million over two years. The software giant declined to say why it prematurely discontinued the deal in February 2005.

"All MSN Premium MLB subscribing customers were notified in advance of the changes and informed about available options to ensure their sports content needs are met," Karin Muskopf, product manager for MSN, said in a statement. An MLB Advanced Media spokesman declined to comment for this story. AOL this year also changed its deal with MLB Advanced Media, which runs the league's online business. AOL said it discontinued its two-year deal, estimated at $9 million, to offer live audio broadcasts and 20-minute edited video clips of each game for free to its broadband subscribers. Instead, AOL will use MLB's online fantasy baseball game.