You can thank Steve Jobs if you’re a) a hardcore baseball and basketball fan and b) own an Apple TV. Apple signed an agreement with Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association for its streaming device, giving customers the ability to watch games live online.

With yet another sign that cable companies are facing competition, the move to offer streaming packages by other means has customers rethinking their television subscriptions.

Up until recently, sports leagues have offered streaming content on their own sites, giving cable companies the benefit by offering live coverage on traditional TV. Now the NBA and MLB can cash in with Apple, as the NBA packages are $65 or $100 per season while the MLB package is $100 and $120 per season. Each package offers customers various options, the lower priced choices having limits while the more expensive packages offer all games.

Purchases are available through the leagues themselves, not through iTunes or the Apple site, bypassing the normal 30 per cent cut of revenues that Apple usually takes from other content sold on devices such as the iPad through the iTunes store.

Apple's set-top used to only do three things, which was allow you to rent or buy iTunes content, stream Netflix and stream iTunes content from other devices. The limitations placed Apple TV behind the offerings of set-top devices like Roku, XBox, and PlayStation 3. Besides Netflix, Roku, PS3, and Xbox have integrated Amazon Video on Demand, Hulu Plus, and scores of other sources of Hollywood content.

Today's update makes Apple TV a lot more competitive in comparison to what those other set-top devices offer. While Apple TV might be late getting into the sports streaming game, this is a solid start for more competition.

The latest news coincided with Apple’s recent software update, version 4.2, which also adds 5.1 Dolby audio to Netflix streaming.