As I noted yesterday, rumors dropped recently that Best Buy Co., Inc. (NYSE: BBY) will soon begin offering digital movie downloads from Lion's Gate studios (and most likely, other studios too) in its push to jumpstart the competition in the emerging market for digital content delivery. Yes, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s iTunes music store has had this market cornered for quite some time, starting with music downloads and continuing with movie and television show downloads. But, those pieces have been limited to the PC and iPod ecosystem (until the Apple TV came along this year, at least).

Consumers want their content to work across products, manufacturers and standards, which has been the reason why some movie download services have not gotten off to a start at all. When all the technical and content protection limitations are known by customers, they generally react like they should: "I'm just not interested." Best Buy's recent role expansion of an entertainment VP to oversee its U.S. entertainment business, however, shows that the retailer may in fact get its foot deeper into the emerging digital content field (music, movies, possibly more). That is, if it can give the market what it wants: unfettered and easy access to content across devices and platforms.

It's pretty apparent by now that entertainment content is moving towards all-digital delivery. It's cheaper, more immediate and has tremendous cost advantages. At the same time content owners continue to be scared to death that all these advantages could be stamped out by rabid content copying and unauthorized transmission over the Internet (without any payments changing hands). Will Best Buy be the one that makes digital content like music and movies easy to download, use and re-use on a variety of devices? It's recent focus on customer relationship development would point to "yes" as an answer to this question, although Apple has made the first bold move here. Who's next? If it's Best Buy, it will be hard to stop the distribution of digital content soon.

Maybe it was the smugness Christian Laettner displayed during my formative years, or the subtle differences between NBA and NCAA Basketball rules, but professional basketball has always been my least favorite of the major sports.

I am impressed, however, with the National Basketball Association's acknowledgment of the digital age. Today, the league announced that it has rolled out a video-download store, at which fans can purchase digital copies of playoff games for $3 a pop. Entire series are available for $13 each, with a full playoff season available for $80.

The league's vice president of interactive services was quoted by the New York Times as saying "great games and surprising results have driven the most popular downloads." Among the heaviest downloads have been the series between the Golden State Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks, as well as last year's final championship-series match-up between the Mavericks and the Miami Heat.

The NBA is the first of the major sports organizations to offer such a service, though other leagues are reportedly converting game footage into digital clips in order to satiate fan demand. An executive with Major League Baseball reveals the league's plans to introduce a video-search product later this year, allowing fans to search through hundreds of clips to find specific highlights (which will likely be available for free). The National Football League is introducing a video-heavy version of its web site this summer and exploring the ramifications of offering historical video footage.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) and SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ:SNDK) are launching a new MP3 player with WiFi capacity, joining a host of rivals to Apple Inc.'s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPod, including the Microsoft Corp.'s (NASDAQ: MSFT) Zune.

The iPod currently has 70% of the portable music player market, and, that number appears to be holding. If the iPhone sells well, Apple will have another horse in the music download space. Cellphones that can download music are offered by the large handset manufacturers including Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) and Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT), but there is little evidence that they have done any damage to the iPod's growth rate.

As much as it must pain Apple's competitors, no one has been able to throw anything in front of the company to slow the momentum of the iPod and its download service iTunes. The European Union recently announced that it would look into pricing issues involving iTunes and the record companies. That may eventually hurt Apple just as antitrust actions by the EU have slowed Microsoft's progress on the Continent.

Apple's only enemy appears to be its own success.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.