Making sense of MLB.com domain structure

[bluelynxmarketing]

Although the subject of subdomains has been discussed quite often on these boards, I never found a clear answer to something I am pondering.

I am about to launch a network of 8 to 10 related sites - all sharing a the same concept, layout, etc. but each site possessing unique content.  My concept will be somewhat similar to how MLB.com (Major League Baseball) is set up.   Each of the 30 teams in the league has it's unique content as a subdomain.  My goal in the initial research was to try to find the answer to this question - **"Do the subdomains of a network contribute any increased value to the Root Domain? **

As I was trying to find the answer to my question and analyzing how MLB.com did it, I began to notice some structure that made very little sense to me and am hoping an expert can explain why they are doing it the way they are.

Let me try to illustrate:

Root Domain = http://mlb.com  (actually redirects to: http://mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp)

This root domain serves universal content that appeals to all fans of the league and also as a portal to the other subdomains from the main navigation.

SubDomain Example = http://tampabay.rays.mlb.com/index.jsp

**Already there are a couple of questions. **

1.  Why does MLB.com redirect to http://mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp ? - why the mlb subdomain?

2. - Why two subdomains for tampabay.rays.mlb.com/index.jsp.?  Why not just make the subdomain "tampabayrays", "newyorkmets", "newyorkyankees" etc.

**Here is where things get a little more complicated and confusing for me. **
From the home page, if I click on an article about the San Francisco Giants, I was half expecting to be led to content hosted from the http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb subdomain but instead the URL was:

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20121030&content_id=40129938&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

I can understand the breakdown of this URL
YMD = Year, Month, Date
Content ID = Identifying the content
VKey = news_MLB (clicked from the "news section found from the mlb subdomain.
c_id=mlb (?)

Now, if I go to the San Francisco Giants page, I see a link to the same exact article but the URL is this:

http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20121030&content_id=40129938&vkey=news_sf&c_id=sf

It get's even stranger...when I went to the Chicago Cubs subdomain, the URL to the same exact article does not even link to the general mlb.mlb.com content, instead the URL looks like this:

http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20121030&content_id=40129938&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb

When I looked at the header from the http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com ULR, I could see the OG:URL as: http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20121030&content_id=40129938&vkey=news_sf&c_id=sf  but I did not see anything relating to rel=canonical

I am sure there is a logical answer to this as the content management for a site like MLB.COM must be a real challenge.  However, it seems that they would have some major issues with duplicate content.

So aside from MLB's complex structure...I am also still searching for the answer to my initial question which is - **"Do the subdomains of a network contribute any increased value to the Root Domain?"  For example, does http://tampabay.rays.mlb.com/index.jsp bring value to http://mlb.com?  And what if the subdomain is marketed as http://raysbaseball.com and then redirected to the subdomain?

Thanks in advance. **

[Klarke]

"Do the subdomains of a network contribute any increased value to the Root Domain?"

Short answer, yes.

Google published this today actually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk&feature=g-all-u

[bluelynxmarketing]

Awesome timing!  Thank you for referring me to that link. That definitely makes me a little more comfortable with my original intentions. At the end of the day, it seems that in our case, the subdomain will ultimately produce the best user experience and in the end, that is probably what I should be focused on anyway.