MLB Again Fails to Fix Blackout Policy

For the past six months, transplanted baseball fans around the country have held out hope that the league's owners would get together and address the ridiculous blackout policy that seriously affects MLB.tv and MLB Extra Innings subscribers across the country.

They said they'd talk about it in November and didn't. Then it was supposed to be addressed before the season and again, it wasn't. Now, Maury Brown says the problem is unlikely to be fixed any time in the future, mostly because teams are afraid of shrinking the size of their TV markets in the current economy.

If you're someone who lives in the same market as your favorite team, you're probably unaware of just how MLB's blackout policy affects fans. In effect, the entire map of the United States is divvied up with baseball teams claiming TV markets as their home markets. When you buy an MLB package, either online or from your cable or satellite provider, the games of your "home" teams are blacked out.

This isn't a problem in, say, Pittsburgh, where only the Pirates are blacked out. If you happen to be a Los Angeles Dodgers fan living in Pittburgh, you can buy Extra Innings and watch the Dodgers in any game that they're not playing the Pirates, then when they do play the Pirates you can watch the local broadcast.

Where this really gets hairy is in markets without teams, like where I currently live (the Raleigh/Durham market in North Carolina). Here, the Orioles and Nationals are both blacked out, even though the the channels that carry their games aren't available locally. If you're an O's or Nats fan here, you're out of luck. You can't watch your favorite team. Even if you're, say, a Mets fan, you miss in the neighborhood of 20 Mets games a year, because you can't watch them when they play a divisional opponent. That's despite paying between $160 and $200 for the rights to watch "every" game.

Things are even worse in Vegas, which is claimed by six teams (both LA squads, the Giants, Diamondbacks, A's, and Padres), with only three of those clubs (both LA squads and the Padres) broadcasting locally. If you're an A's fan in Vegas, you only get to see them play the Angels.

It's an arcane and illogical policy that does far more harm to baseball than good, but the owners don't really seem to care. And they wonder why TV ratings are dropping.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

5-29-2009 @ 3:32PM

pete said...

Blackouts of local sports have been around for a long time Baseball, hockey,football, and basketball all do this.. And, no protests by anyone has done anything. The question is, " aren't these stadiums and parking fields built with TAX PAYERS monetary assitance???
Why then are they blocked from the locals who paid the tax?

5-29-2009 @ 3:58PM

Yohncc said...

I agree, however, I do understand why Major League Baseball has the blackouts. The problem in my opinion is that this is excessive. I can see where local games within a city (and its surrounding area) are blacked out if it's not a sellout. If it is, lift the blackout. As far as games being blacked out in states without a Major League Team except for Virginia (it being not far from Washington D.C.) the rest should have no blackouts at all.

Not being a subscriber I was unaware of this, however I can see where someone would get peeved by this. Thanks for the information.

5-29-2009 @ 4:04PM

Mike said...

It's pretty bad in San Diego where every Angel game is blacked out but if you don't have Cox cable you can't watch Padre games either

5-29-2009 @ 4:08PM

mikeduarte22 said...

5-29-2009 @ 4:22PM

Matt Snyder said...

Yeah, I love paying $180 a season and not being allowed to watch the opposing broadcasts of the 8 Cubs games that are on WCIU (Chicago-only station and I live in Indy) ... it just makes too much sense to let me enjoy a product I bought.

5-29-2009 @ 4:55PM

tonloco said...

I am an avid Padres fan. I lived in San Diego my whole life until last November. Now I live in Hawaii. There is no baseball team here and I am over 2400 miles from California. I purchased the MLB.tv package because I wanted to continue to watch the Padres here. Prior, on TV, I could only watch when they play the Dodgers or Angels (interleague) on Prime Ticket. After I bought the package, It was blacked out every time the Padres played the Giants. Since the Giants are considered the home team. This is dumb. The Giants are over 2400 hundred miles away. And the Padres play the Giants approx. 20 times per season. I cancelled my subscription, and will not purchase again, until they change this stupid policy.

5-29-2009 @ 5:16PM

raymondjuarezs said...

Where I live but soon moving anyways and as a Giants fan...if you have Directv or Dish Network and the Giants aren't on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, and only on the local affilate you're screwed because Directv or Dish Network here doesn't carry the local Giants affilate station here.

5-29-2009 @ 8:08PM

ruecatnat said...

Here in northy Florida, tonight's Marlins-Mets game is on theTV schedule but not broadcast and Comcast says it is blacked out. Even worse, I have been paying for HD for more than two years and Comcast refuses to offer the Mets and Rays games brodcast ON NON HD on HD channels. Comcast has given me several different exuses that make no sense.

5-29-2009 @ 8:38PM

Don Baker said...

Whoops, I mean Marlins and Rays games broadcast on Sun and FL nets. Bothe say ther are available in HD but Comcast, in this area, refuses to carry them although Comcast is not reluctant to charge viewers heavily for HD service.

5-30-2009 @ 12:27AM

Murph said...

WATCH your FAVE TEAMS ON MyP2P.EU .. if your as sick of this as you say you are, you can do something about it.. go to MyP2P.EU its a sports share site that shows games on your computer. it works like Napster did and no wirries with virus' go download the softwear and ENJOY!!! its FREE and legal !!! MyP2P.EU share your feeds and watch others who share theres TAKE THAT BUD !!!!

5-30-2009 @ 10:06AM

joeomar said...

I get MLB Extra Innings, but I live in Omaha where the KC Royals are blacked out. We don't get any local TV broadcasts of them either, of course. As a result of this we don't follow the Royals hardly at all - we never get to see them play. You'd think the Royals would see an enormous benefit in building a fan base here. KC is a popular weekend-getaway for Omaha and being Royals fans would give us another excuse for going there. Instead, can you guess what motivates people to go to KC to see a game? It's to see a team we DO follow on TV playing AGAINST the Royals. Isn't that bizarre? Even the Royals acknowledge that attendance goes up when they're playing a team with a big TV audience! Doesn't it seem like they'd LEARN something from that?

5-30-2009 @ 4:26PM

jkrdevil said...

My question is why is the 1pm Saturday games blacked out on Extra Innings? The FOX telecast doesn't begin until for so it is not like I won't watch the FOX game if I'm watching another game 3 hours before.

6-22-2009 @ 9:00AM

Jer said...

If you're in a state where only one or two teams get blacked out, I seriously envy you, especially if your favorite team isn't in the same division as the blacked out teams, six to nine games a year? No big deal. A close second to Las Vegas is Iowa...the entire freaking state. Why does baseball seem to have this indefensible policy of blacking out more teams the further away from a Major League city you get? If I moved closer to Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis or Kansas City there would be fewer blacked out teams. I just don't get it.

5-31-2009 @ 11:59AM

SuperGrover said...

I'm in Central PA,Carlisle.I'm a Mets Fan.MLB has you submit your area code,then tells you no games are blacked out in your area,then you purchace the package only to find out that the Phillie games,Nationals ,Pirates,Orioles,sat game of the week,Tbs games are all blacked out here.You cannot get a refund or some of your money back.This is cleary a bait and switch tacket,and against all fair trade practice's,but no one will do anything about it.

6-11-2009 @ 10:44AM

BornInTheUSSR75 said...

If you think that Las Vegas or Virginia fans have it rough then let me tell you how hard is it being a Yankees or Red Sox fan in Connecticut. The only channel that carries Yankees games is YES network, a cable channel that is owned by local cable provider Cablevision. As such the only way for you to watch them play is to subscribe to Cablevision's package that costs about $60 a month. If you want to have a lower cost Dish TV you're out of luck. If you live outside of the Cablevision's coverage zone (of which there are many) you're had better pick a different team to be a fan of. Red Sox situation is even worse. Only half of the state are deemed close enough to Boston to warrant the NESM broadcast (New England Sports Net), the only channel broadcasting Sox games. Dish does carry it but only as part of their "Primium" package that costs $20-$30 more than the lower cost HD only package that actually makes sense. And a quick mention about Mets, that also have their own network only available on cable. So, the net result is that a Dish subscriber such as myself cant watch the games on the team's respective network because I don't get them, can't watch them on ESPN or MLB.TV because of blackout restrictions.
Because of that I am contemplating writing a letter to attorney general of CT to see if this is an issue he can help the fans with.

6-14-2009 @ 5:49PM

randy parreira said...

check this out i live closer to LA than san fran dish shows all dodgers angels and oakland games but right before giants game starts its blackedout unfortunatly im a giants fan

7-02-2009 @ 3:49PM

eysikal said...

Old thread, but I found a way to get by the mlb.tv blackouts in case anyone is interested.

You use a proxy server and I found out how to do it here: http://mlbtvblackout.blogger.com/

7-02-2009 @ 4:25PM

Oops! I meant http://mlbtvblackout.blogspot.com/

8-31-2009 @ 6:20AM

malkusm said...

I'm from MD but spent 4 years at college in VA and just moved to a different part of VA permanently. Die-hard O's fan, but for almost 5 years now I haven't been able to watch any of their games - no cable company carries MASN (the O's/Nats provider) but of course the whole state of VA is blacked out for both teams. Apparently you can only watch them if you're rich enough to have a dish AND pay for the ridiculous sports package with MASN, or if you live in Richmond.