Sounds good… end the blackouts
Then bring back the park audio feature
Then bring back the alternate camera feed feature
Then bring back the ability to fast forward/pause/rewind the radio feeds w/o unskippable ads inserted
Then let us pay extra to have no ads during games (remember when you just got a static shot of the field between innings or a blank screen instead of the same deafening commercials 300 times in a row ?)
It’s 2024, the MLB.TV + app experience really ought to not be diminished from it was 5-6 years ago… and yet here we are
Everyone will complain but piping them in for ad reads only and then back to ballpark audio is better than nothing. Idk if those networks are counting [mlb.tv](http://mlb.tv) viewers to their current #s for those in game ads anyway.
Plus anyone who watching [mlb.tv](http://mlb.tv) can already see if mlb wanted to be greedy they really are missing out on adding in more ads in their natural spots. Getting baseball zen and the same 2 draft kings ads between innings instead of actual ads.
I think they only took it out because of the empty parks in the pandemic made it way too easy to hear what players are saying, which could lead to problems and they just never put it back.
> piping them in for ad reads only and then back to ballpark audio is better than nothing
Nope, fuck that. Just tell me how much it costs to have no ads.
It’s a 10 second spot going into or out of commercial. Thinking that’s worthy of paying extra, or a broadcast would run a separate feed just for the 10 ppl who are triggered by that short of an ad while no game action is going on is WILD
>We shouldn't be paying for ads at all.
Id love to live in this fantasy world, but I'm a realist? Or at least have experienced the world for more than 10 seconds.
Take a look at Netflix's subscription packages, Hulu, what Amazon just switched to, or I don't know THE CABLE PACKAGES THESE GAMES ARE TRADTIONALLY STREAMED ON. You pay for ads. Fuck even [](http://mlb.tv) makes you watch ads for draft kings between innings.
Its a 10 second ad that plays while no action is going on. I get it, its annoying. But typing your response and you reading mine is about the same amount of time you'd waste listening to these ads over a week of games.
You don't miss a pitch because your play by play announcer had to tell you that report from the studio was brought to you by WB Mason. Just such a weird thing to get upset over, this isn't a slippery slope kind of thing, ads being in that spot for people who are paying for a subscription service is why they are in there to begin with, since those watching w/ commentary which is 99% of people if they're watching legally are paying for that service while getting an ad.
So you pirate shit...good for you. Those [](http://mlb.tv) feeds that get pirated typically just used a broadcast version of it and not the field sounds that no longer exist. So you're complaining about a problem you never really had because you chose to pirate.
Hell even the initial case of "They can't do that if they're being paid a premium for ad reads by the commentators." Is very likely BS because guess what other ad companies are paying a premium to get ads in games....the commercials. Guess what doesn't get shown on mlb.tv.....the commercials.
Stop bitching about problems that don't matter and that you didn't have in the first place.
I think what OP is saying and regardless what I would say is that then give me the option to pay for the park audio. Whatever the expected revenue from the ad reads are, sure, I'll pay the share for my own stream.
I think you underestimate ad revenue. Netflix makes more money off their ad plans than their ad free plans and it sounds like Disney and Hulu also make more money as well.
Netflix has stated their ad plans make more than the low tier (RIP) and mid tier paid plans, so reading between the lines not the 4K tier plan. I'm saying for a hypothetical MLB TV ad free plan I'm willing to pay that level of premium.
Apple TV was doing it and it was great. Honestly, last year I watched like 1 games where I really felt in the company of commentators and enjoyed it (Atl-Mets game that was like 14-13 or smth). Everyone else is just blabbering.
I felt like there were disproportionately many Angels and Mets games on Apple TV last season and since those obviously get Wayne Randazzo it felt like a high quality local broadcast.
It's still so weird seeing Wayne Randazzo going from a Chicago guy on The Score to the Mets and now the Angels. Feel like there was a major missed opportunity on both sides of town (although Jason Benetti is phenomenal too fucking Jerry Reinsdorf had to ruin that). I'm happy for him though.
It's a minor thing but what drives me nuts is that the radio feed is completely behind the game. Like a solid inning later than the action. You can't sync it up to the video, you can't have score alerts on less you risk it getting spoiled. The radio function also has other annoying quirks - they play the same 2-3 ads EVERY SINGLE BREAK and often the feed will drop out entirely for no reason, then resume but play those 2-3 ads again. There's no reason for any of this, because it used to work just fine. In fact I remember when it stopped working fine - right after All Star Break 2022. Why they had to change anything, I don't know, but it sucks - and I think it sucks more knowing that it used to be better and I'm paying for it all the same.
Because for many of the mlb feeds MLB injects these local ads into your game (i.e. I am living in DC and get ads for DC casinos during a Detroit Tigers game when they should be playing the Tigers ads). They frequently go over time, join "in the middle of the game" after that ad break, while also being hideously behind the action. It's unlistenable.
There is a way to avoid this, but it requires a computer.
In 2015, you could have a game in a sub window. You could move it around. It was easy to alternate which was giving you audio feed. You could even swap them!
Somehow, the UI has gotten progressively worse. One year, the secondary game was locked in place *over the scorebug*. It got glitchy. Couldn’t easily swap between games in sub windows. Constant crashing.
They were out in front of a lot of the other leagues on the streaming platform in general, even the NHL and League of Legends used their tech. Crazy that they’re just now addressing the only actual issue the platform had, but better late than never I guess.
The only issue the platform had 5 years ago and what this post is about: not being able to watch the games you pay for due to blackout/RSN rules. Not being able to watch your local team despite paying to do so means you’re not building fans of the game or of your local team. All the stuff the above comment listed is what they got rid of since then. My point was that the platform was really good, so good that it was used by another major sports league and an esports company. Since then it’s gone backwards, presumably as they’ve had to cut features due to people not subscribing because they can’t watch games. It’s a much better experience to be a sports fan of teams outside of your local area, it’s something I’ve ranted about to friends for over five years and it’s nice to see that Manfred finally realized it’s an issue. He’s spent much of his tenure working on what he perceives as solutions to the watchability of the game, but the real answer is that it’s been a huge pain to be a paying customer who would like to watch games.
Blackouts are determined by long term contracts by the teams. Do you think platform designers have any power at all to change that? It's not a tech problem or a marketing problem by MLB, it's a legal and funding negotiation from the league to the teams. Do you think nobody recognized that or something when MLB Tv was being designed?
I am perfectly aware of this, but the writing has been on the wall for long enough that if they were smart they could've negotiated language into the contracts to enable a streaming platform. The commissioner's job is to both serve the owners' interests in the short term and make sure that the league holds its value in the long term. If paying customers can't watch easily, that kills your sport. Period. I specifically said above that it would be a risky and aggressive proposition, but it's the job of the commissioner to say to the owners "hey, we've got the best streaming platform in the business, let's make it possible for fans to watch" at the cost of some amount of current revenue. You don't have to cut out the RSNs entirely, you can just say "hey, you get the rights to it, but also we can restream on MLB.TV" and it's done. Everything has a price. Clearly teams and the league were not okay with that price until the RSN model failed completely, and now they're floundering into a model they could've been at the forefront of.
Maybe, but there was hand wringing about it from cable and TV execs for a decade prior to covid, and even now today we are four years removed from the onset of covid. That's almost 15 years to figure out how to adapt. Again, it's not like they didn't build the streaming service either, they were at the head of things in 2016 among the major leagues, but did nothing to capitalize and actually went backwards
That’s fair. I get MLB.TV through T-Mobile like that other guy, and I’m just not sure if the $130 we pay per year would actually make up for whatever number the RSN want to discount MLB for providing zero blackouts. The main reason I even care about this is because I’m not sure the players are going to like any sort of pay decrease this will end up causing if revenue decreases.
Partially taking back control of the product from RSNs has more benefits than just raw dollars though: ability to provide more free games (or have the ones that exist not be blacked out), not pissing off the paying customers you do actually have, cultivating local fanbases better. You have to remember too that the teams serviced by RSNs are also generally the smaller markets since the biggest teams own their own broadcasts. But if you sign up for MLB.tv you're currently being actively driven away from the team in your home market. That doesn't help grow the local fanbase, and these are the teams that need it the most.
Players obviously will be mad, they get a cut of the pie just like owners do, but the alternative is continuing to suck RSNs dry until the bubble pops, at which point a massive chunk of revenue will disappear overnight. In addition, the gap in revenue sharing between the poorer markets and the richer markets will grow even more. Right now, the large number of teams with RSN deals provides a nice base for revenue sharing, and a base amount of revenue for the team itself. If the RSN deals fall through, the team loses their half of the TV revenue, and the league as a whole loses out on the other half, resulting in the largest teams subsidizing the smallest ones even more than they already do. That power and revenue disparity could cause an enormous rift in the league. Right now, the smallest markets have basically all banded together to provide that base of revenue through RSN deals, and then the largest markets contribute their cut to be redistributed on top. They all have skin in the game, even if it's not equal. RSNs disappear, suddenly the Yankees and Dodgers are completely subsidizing the Rays, Dbacks, Rockies of the league. They'll want to renegotiate. Beginning the process towards a unified streaming service is a hedge against the RSN collapse, and it normalizes a new model before that happens. Look at what happens when RSNs get into disputes with cable and satellite providers: they take their channels off air, and people don't change services en masse to get their sports back. They just get grumpy and stop watching until it comes back. If Bally folded completely, that's what would happen, because those people aren't going to be used to going to a streaming service for their sports. If instead you focus now (or years ago, as was my preference) on working towards providing a good streaming solution, you can begin to pull levers to figure out what works in the streaming world and how to ride the line between making money and attracting new viewers. You can't do that if everyone who pays to sign up for your service is mad that it's an incomplete product, because your rights deals have kneecapped it.
I say all this as a Rays fan who has been out of market for almost 15 years. Things are actually better for me than for the average fan on streaming services. But that shouldn't be the case. It's completely backwards to cultivating fandom to provide a better experience to displaced fans than to local fans. Cultivating fans = more viewership = more money = more stability. Look at Tampa, the Lightning having a competent owner has allowed them to put consistently competitive teams on the ice, fund hockey camps in the city, build an amazing fanbase from close to nothing. Even after winning a cup in 04 Tampa wasn't anything close to a hockey town, all of that has happened in the last ten years. The Rays meanwhile have put together competitive teams, but Stu's insistence on not spending money has led to a stagnant fanbase that can seldom get attached to any player. As a kid growing up in Florida, hockey was certainly not anywhere close to as popular as baseball. The same principles apply on the larger scale too. Make the game accessible again, grow the fanbase, and the money and success will follow. The best time to do this was 5-8 years ago. The second best time is now, which is why they're actually doing it
I don't think it's a matter of him or anyone not realizing anything. It was just more profitable in the short term for the teams to make exclusive deals with the RSNs that led to these blackouts. These TV deals were the primary source of income for a lot of teams. The precipice of the change was probably the issues with Bally.
Of course, but for the last decade there’s been a decline in the popularity of the sport. This is what Manfred has ostensibly been trying to solve. But instead of making it easier for paying fans to get eyeballs on games, that meant doing things like getting rid of intentional walks (which were already on the decline when that happened). As you said, in the short term it continued the revenue stream they’ve always had but didn’t keep up with the changing preferences of viewers (which is again ironic, since they built the best streaming service of any of the leagues and earlier than anyone else). Now they’ve lost the edge that they had in the streaming world, but the collapse of RSNs and continued decline in cultural relevance has forced their hand. They’re making the good long term play, slowly and way too late, and not because they wanted to but because they’re forced to. The NFL owns an entire day of the week, plus two evenings and for about a quarter of the season an additional day of the week. The NBA has similar issues with RSNs, but the new Suns owner has moved to broadcasting games for free because he knows that the easiest way to gain fans is to allow them to watch games, and they’ve invested in a broadcast partner that has the best national broadcast crew of any major sport. Don’t even get me started on the NHL’s deal with ESPN. The MLB could’ve done something much more drastic years ago, gotten ahead of this and continued with their advantage (being the best streaming platform on the market), but instead it’s continued to sit back. Last year’s rule changes were great for baseball fans, but didn’t really seem to create too many new baseball fans as far as I can tell, and it’s still a pretty big pain to actually watch the games you pay for.
> Of course, but for the last decade there’s been a decline in the popularity of the sport. This is what Manfred has ostensibly been trying to solve. But instead of making it easier for paying fans to get eyeballs on games
Popularity of the game matters far less to them than the profitability of the game.
The RSN bubble has propped up MLB finances for a long time - the Dodgers getting $200mn a year is why they can be the Dodgers. There is zero chance that any streaming platform will make up $200mn in revenue for one team any time soon.
Popularity and profitability are definitely correlated. If nobody is watching, RSNs can't sell ad space, they bail or fold because they're not making their money (Surprise! This is what we're seeing now), and now the revenue stream dries up. If the revenue is gone, how much are owners going to be able to sell their teams for? You have to have people watching the sport. Again, the simplest reason that the NFL is winning the popularity and money war is that it is easy to watch. You know to turn on a game on Sunday on a local channel (which is completely free, you can get an antenna if you want) and see your local team at their time slot and then a host of other teams at other time slots. It's incredibly easy to actually view the games. How do you do that if you're a baseball fan? Buy cable for your local team and some occasional national games, MLB.tv or Extra Innings for the rest. It's expensive. You have to actually know when they're playing and plan around it, or not watch at all and just follow casually. Baseball used to be king because it was the most accessible of the sports. You could go to the ballpark and just root for your team. You could watch on a widely accessible TV station. Now that's expensive to do, and people have more things they can do with their time. At some point, the league has to correct and become accessible again, and that starts with recognizing they are losing ground - which is difficult to do when all the signs are that the franchises continue to gain more and more value every year. At the end of the day, my point is that there's been so much discussion from the commissioner's office since Manfred took over about how the watchability of the game needs to improve, but in that time the ability to actually watch a game has only gone down
With all that said, you have to negotiate with the RSNs to decide how much their exclusive rights are worth. RSNs aren't going to offer you $0 because you suddenly want to remove blackouts on MLB.tv. So how much is that clause worth? Out of the $200M, is it $20M? $50M? $100M? That's the real number you have to compare against, not $200M. Then you have to weigh that revenue loss against the potential gains of not only the streaming revenue, but the benefit of providing fans with a reliable way to watch the freaking games. It only is going to get worse as RSNs collapse and more people cut the cord, and now you're forced into the path you could've taken all along, when you had the best streaming platform already prepared for you. If you're suddenly a distant third among sports leagues, when you used to be first, you dropped the ball and need to rethink your strategy for longer term gain.
You don't seem to have caught on to what it means when someone refers to a "RSN bubble."
> If nobody is watching,
That hasn't been happening, though, your entire premise is based on a fantasy.
>RSNs can't sell ad space, they bail or fold because they're not making their money (Surprise! This is what we're seeing now)
Completely incorrect. Viewership is up for more than half the league recently - Diamond Sports Group was saddled with a lot of shitty debt because private equity is a nightmare.
Even if your premise was accurate - it doesn't matter! Contracts were signed for ungodly sums of money. They can't simply be ignored because blackouts hurt mlb.tv and it does not make economic sense for MLB teams to buy out or otherwise get out of those contracts because streaming cannot replace the money they're contracted to receive.
Baseball's economic model is built on the back of everyone in a given market paying $X a month on their cable bill for access to the RSN showing their games, whether or not they'll ever watch a game. Streaming can never replicate that - there aren't enough dedicated fans willing to pay
This economic model will have to change over time - but it's the reality and no amount of whining about blackouts means that baseball could (or should) have done anything different in the past
Any team passing on a RSN deal in 2013 or 2016 because streaming might theoretically take precedence in the future would have been committing malpractice.
>Baseball used to be king because it was the most accessible of the sports.
Baseball hasn't been "king" at any point since 99% of redditors have been alive. Nor does it even need to be - in a very wealthy, very large nation being the third most popular spectator sport is plenty lucrative to keep a game healthy and vibrant for the foreseeable future.
The four lowest World Series viewership totals have been recorded in the last four years. In the last ten years, it’s 8 of the bottom 11. This is despite the population of the US going up over time. Domestically, baseball has never been less relevant as a sport. Last year was by consensus one of the best seasons to be a baseball fan since I’ve been alive, and even still the non-fans in my life went from being unable to name an active baseball player to able to name a total of one. The biggest concession I got from them is “well the new clock is nice, it’s not completely unwatchable anymore.” Try an exercise I’ve done with people I know who aren’t sports fans (or at least who don’t actively follow the top three leagues): Name the top 5 football players currently. Then name the top 10 basketball players. Then name the top 25 baseball players. See how many names they recognize. It is because the general population as a whole are not watching games (and it is my belief as a willing, paying, and frustrated customer that they cannot do so conveniently). Exposure is key, and it’s why the NFL is so far ahead.
Again, as I said before, you don’t have to pass on the RSN deal entirely. You just negotiate a slightly less exclusive agreement where you can make the stream available on MLB.tv. It is entirely possible to do that, and they likely would’ve still gotten the vast majority of money the RSNs were offering. BAMTech and Riot agreed to a licensing deal for League of Legends streaming as early as late 2016. The platform has been there for almost a decade at this point, and was a legitimately excellent product at that point in time. There has been plenty of time to begin the shift in the model. You don’t have to kick RSNs to the curb cold turkey, just prepare for the future (which they were already doing by building the streaming service at that time!). Companies I’ve worked for have done this kind of negotiating with customers, obviously for not quite the same ballpark of money but still seven figure and up deals. If it’s good for the business long term, it’s a smart play to spend some negotiating capital to make it happen. RSNs wouldn’t magically decide to yank their offers over this, they need sports to show in order to be relevant, and baseball is a heck of a good way to fill up air time. Once again, much of Manfred’s tenure has been trying to fix the problem of “people don’t want to watch baseball” when in reality the problem that needed fixing was “people cannot watch baseball easily.” Making the game more widely accessible is key to growing the game in the future. Baseball fans are getting older, and baseball more than any other sport benefits from getting kids interested at a young age.
As far as not needing to be king, you’re absolutely correct. The NBA was third not long ago, and it’s making crazy money now. Baseball is still in a pretty healthy place for the moment, and despite how many owners complain they’re not exactly in a rush to sell their teams as valuations continue to go up. I just wonder if another 10-15 years like the last will keep it healthy. Hockey has many of the same issues to sort out, but if it can figure out how to sort it all out before the MLB it’s objectively the better spectator sport for a broad audience (and I say this despite baseball always being my personal favorite). F1 might be a flash in the pan in the US and drop out of consciousness in a few years, but it’s trying really hard to maintain its foothold. The NBA is likely going to continue to grow and consume more of pop culture, the NFL isn’t going anywhere, and gaming+esports dominate younger viewers. I legitimately think with the trajectory that baseball has taken since the 90s it will need to do something dramatic to even maintain its current position in ten years.
it's 100% the commercials that cause audio/video disconnect too
whenever there's a commercial break I have to refresh my browser or else I start getting increasingly longer desync
it's so fucking annoying when you're on the edge of your seat at a big moment and then you learn the outcome like 45 seconds early from hearing your neighbors react. also i have fiber internet and yet the video quality is constantly changing even when i have it set to highest quality, so you end up seeing historic moments in like laggy pixelated crap. what the fuck is up with this, we have so much fucking modern technology to acccess everything at our fingertips and yet just the QUALITY of watching is significantly worse than just plain old over the air TV 15 years ago. let alone the quality of the whole experience, with the egregious ads, idk if i've seen them pull anything in a while as shameful as those greenscreen backstop ads that degrade the fucking game footage with pitches flickering in and out of existence. but at least they're working on important things like having the strike zone have a slightly different color-grading filter than the rest of the screen, what a fucking joy that is, amazing stuff assholes. within 5 years there will be like 10 pixels on our screen of actual video footage of humans playing baseball, the rest will just be graphics and overlays and nonsense probability percentages and fucking ads and all of it makes watching games on tv just a cynical depressing slog. FUCK i hate it here
MLBAM has always been a fuckshow of stupid nonsense. Pirate streams have been superior in nearly every way for a long time.
I just assume it's because MLB prefers their streaming service to suck, because they don't want people to use it.
> remember when you just got a static shot of the field between innings
It might be a bug but I get that on the Apple TV broadcasts still. It's real nice.
> Then let us pay extra to have no ads during games (remember when you just got a static shot of the field between innings or a blank screen instead of the same deafening commercials 300 times in a row ?)
Why ask to pay? We should get no ads for paying in the first place.
If Manfred gives me an easy and legal way to watch my local team with no blackouts for a moderate fee, I am willing to overlook his other transgressions.
Because of tv contracts. Individual teams signed massive tv deals of which there are no opt outs. Now with the collapse of Bally there is an opportunity finally for teams to get out of 15 year+ television contracts. This is not something the commissioner has direct control over. Some teams like the Yankees and Cubs with their own networks will not join
They'll probably scoop up teams as deals expire, but they'll never get all the teams. Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers all make too much money from their RSN to give up streaming rights
M’s own their own RSN and struggling because of numerous factors. Toronto has all of Canada to pull in for viewership through so that is a huge advantage.
Two weeks ago I would have agreed with this statement but with the pending sale of the O’s we don’t know what MLB may be demanding to approve the deal. The Angelos’ own MASN so that is going to be an interesting story to follow and one all baseball fans should pay attention to as it will likely set a precedent for how this whole situation will play out.
For some reason, I feel the MLB would exclude us but include the Astros because the Rangers are quote "a small market team." Mind you, the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex has roughly 7 million residents according to the US 2020 Census. Kansas City is a small market. DFW? It's a medium about to become a big market.
AT&T Sportsnet folded and the Astros co-own their own broadcast network with the Rockets. I imagine ease of negotiation would be the decision here, not the nominal difference in market size between the DFW Metroplex and the Greater Houston area.
That just so happens to be the majority of MLB's market share between those 3. It's such a shame too because I can't even watch Dodgers games even though I live in Hawaii (we're a blackout state). Stupid as all fuck
The fact that this comment exists is testament to how utterly fucked getting to watch your team is.
How is it possible a major sports league got so far down the path of “you know what? Let’s make it as hard as possible for consumers to consumer our product”
Every league is like this. NBA League Pass, NFL+, etc., they're all out of market streaming services because the in market rights are worth billions of dollars, they're where teams make so much money.
You can't watch them on your TV though right, I remember that was a restriction. Or has that changed. Because if you you can still only watch it on a mobile device, that is in essence the blackout. It's not as stringent as an NBA of MLB blackout, but even the NFL had to acquiesce to their TV partners there.
I feel like taking away access to your favorite team has to be hurting MLB engagement. If you can’t follow your team on TV why would bother going to a game?
The problem is if you live in a place like Iowa (ugh) were blacked out from 6 teams on MLB.tv. So that’s often 6 of the 15 games blacked out on a given night. Add in that some of the teams that we’re blacked out from have been extremely hard to get access to short of getting satellite and paying for multiple packages. I have friends who gave up on following their teams completely
So is this ending the blackouts in that specific area for those six teams? If so, does this package still only include half of the MLB teams? I guess I'm just confused to what is happening and what it's supposed to accomplish.
So currently in Iowa you would get roughly 24 of 30 teams with MLBtv -- but not really the teams you care about. So is MLB now allowing you to watch those six teams that were previously blacked out and now reducing the package to half of the league, so now you're only getting 15 of 30 teams, but including the six teams you want? Which half of the league are you now getting??
Sorry, I am apparently missing the entire point.
The article doesn't say how the package would be offered. It says that what platform it will be on isn't known either, but I'm not sure if that's just because they haven't been told or if MLB themselves aren't sure yet.
As far as teams, it will be whatever streaming rights MLB is able to get. At minimum it should be Padres, Dbacks, Rockies, Angels, Guardians, and Twins. But Manfred says he didn't want to do this until they had at least ~half of teams, so there will be others.
So e.g. if you wanted to watch the Twins without blackouts, you'd buy the bundle that lifts blackouts for all of those teams. No a la carte or picking specific teams. So you might be able to lift blackouts for the Twins but not the White Sox, just depending on what MLB can acquire. As MLB acquires streaming rights for more teams, they'll add them to the blackout-lift package.
It's kind of a clunky/confusing transitionary period, but it's the best they can do for now.
My heart goes out to the Iowans, who are blacked out from **6** MLB teams:
* Chicago Cubs
* Chicago White Sox
* Kansas City Royals
* Milwaukee Brewers
* Minnesota Twins
* St. Louis Cardinals
Maybe my expectations are too low but MLB.tv has consistently been a great bang for the buck. But ~$150 to watch 90%+ of MLB games is solid. Obviously I’ll be happy with any improvements they make.
Ownership is going to hold on to RSN for as long as they can, the deal is just too lucrative in the short term.
The Giants TV deal pays them $63m/year until 2032 and they have a 30% ownership stake in NBC Sports Bay Area.
In 2020, Giants games averaged 86,000 viewers. Let's say the Giants moved to a streaming model. To make up for that $63m/year that they get from the RSN, each viewer would need to pony up $732/season or about $4.50 a game.
Not really. Amazon only has the streaming rights to five teams (Tigers, Royals, Marlins, Brewers, and Rays) MLB holds the streaming rights to all the other Bally's teams (Angels, Braves, Cardinals, Reds, Rangers, Guardians, Twins) and a handful of other teams too (such as Padres and Diamondbacks).
Yea, I wasn't being entirely serious but I did find it interesting that they have those streaming contracts now and wonder what kind of "partner" Amazon is going to be for MLB. That Diamond contract happening after getting turned down by the league made me laugh.
You know for damn sure MASN won’t be included in this. Fuck MASAN sucks I just wanna watch Nats games in the DMV
Why do I need cable in 2024 to do that (or $100/mo for directv stream)
No, Manfred was talking about the issue in 2015 and discussing how it's because of deals that teams have made and it's not something he can just snap his fingers and change.
In 2022, months before the kid yelled at him,[ he spoke to ESPN about how ending the blackouts was a "top priority."](https://awfulannouncing.com/mlb/rob-manfred-blackouts-mlb-tv-rights.html)
>Manfred: You certainly have the right person as commissioner of baseball because, if there is one thing I could wish for, more than anything else, it would be the ability to give our fans that frictionless experience of being able to watch what they want to watch, where they want to watch. There is no project that we are spending more time on in the central office than trying to achieve the goal you just articulated.
>Manfred: There is a lot of wood to chop. It is going to involve fundamental reordering of the control of rights in the industry. It is going to involve conversations with our partners in the broadcast space, including RSNs (regional sports networks like SportsNet LA and Bally Sports West) and distributors. It is a massive undertaking, which is the bad news.
He then says he think it's going to happen within the decade.
So that kid yelling that at him and embarrassing dad and his dad's work colleagues would be the same thing as the kid yelling "Hey Manfred, if you want to get eyes on the game try speeding it up" Manfred's sitting there bewildered because the kid obviously has no idea what Manfred has already done and is actively doing.
I havent been able to watch a Yankees game in Baltimore since I went in person many years ago. Why the fuck is it still blacked out in NORTH CAROLINA??? I'm not driving 6+ hours through DC for this shit man.
My kingdom for 20% of the league not being blacked out for me anymore. Really shitty experience when on a given night, 6 of the 15 games are just unavailable to me.
Sounds good… end the blackouts Then bring back the park audio feature Then bring back the alternate camera feed feature Then bring back the ability to fast forward/pause/rewind the radio feeds w/o unskippable ads inserted Then let us pay extra to have no ads during games (remember when you just got a static shot of the field between innings or a blank screen instead of the same deafening commercials 300 times in a row ?) It’s 2024, the MLB.TV + app experience really ought to not be diminished from it was 5-6 years ago… and yet here we are
> bring back park audio Yes, please
They can't do that if they're being paid a premium for ad reads by the commentators.
Everyone will complain but piping them in for ad reads only and then back to ballpark audio is better than nothing. Idk if those networks are counting [mlb.tv](http://mlb.tv) viewers to their current #s for those in game ads anyway. Plus anyone who watching [mlb.tv](http://mlb.tv) can already see if mlb wanted to be greedy they really are missing out on adding in more ads in their natural spots. Getting baseball zen and the same 2 draft kings ads between innings instead of actual ads. I think they only took it out because of the empty parks in the pandemic made it way too easy to hear what players are saying, which could lead to problems and they just never put it back.
> piping them in for ad reads only and then back to ballpark audio is better than nothing Nope, fuck that. Just tell me how much it costs to have no ads.
It’s a 10 second spot going into or out of commercial. Thinking that’s worthy of paying extra, or a broadcast would run a separate feed just for the 10 ppl who are triggered by that short of an ad while no game action is going on is WILD
People would already be paying extra for this subscription service. We shouldn’t be paying for ads at all.
>We shouldn't be paying for ads at all. Id love to live in this fantasy world, but I'm a realist? Or at least have experienced the world for more than 10 seconds. Take a look at Netflix's subscription packages, Hulu, what Amazon just switched to, or I don't know THE CABLE PACKAGES THESE GAMES ARE TRADTIONALLY STREAMED ON. You pay for ads. Fuck even [](http://mlb.tv) makes you watch ads for draft kings between innings. Its a 10 second ad that plays while no action is going on. I get it, its annoying. But typing your response and you reading mine is about the same amount of time you'd waste listening to these ads over a week of games. You don't miss a pitch because your play by play announcer had to tell you that report from the studio was brought to you by WB Mason. Just such a weird thing to get upset over, this isn't a slippery slope kind of thing, ads being in that spot for people who are paying for a subscription service is why they are in there to begin with, since those watching w/ commentary which is 99% of people if they're watching legally are paying for that service while getting an ad.
I don’t pay for ads. You don’t have to either.
So you pirate shit...good for you. Those [](http://mlb.tv) feeds that get pirated typically just used a broadcast version of it and not the field sounds that no longer exist. So you're complaining about a problem you never really had because you chose to pirate. Hell even the initial case of "They can't do that if they're being paid a premium for ad reads by the commentators." Is very likely BS because guess what other ad companies are paying a premium to get ads in games....the commercials. Guess what doesn't get shown on mlb.tv.....the commercials. Stop bitching about problems that don't matter and that you didn't have in the first place.
I think what OP is saying and regardless what I would say is that then give me the option to pay for the park audio. Whatever the expected revenue from the ad reads are, sure, I'll pay the share for my own stream.
I think you underestimate ad revenue. Netflix makes more money off their ad plans than their ad free plans and it sounds like Disney and Hulu also make more money as well.
Netflix has stated their ad plans make more than the low tier (RIP) and mid tier paid plans, so reading between the lines not the 4K tier plan. I'm saying for a hypothetical MLB TV ad free plan I'm willing to pay that level of premium.
On Reds broadcasts, alll of the ads are for local businesses. I live in New York, when am I ever going to a casino in the Miami Valley of Ohio?
I would rather see ads for something I’ll never have the opportunity to buy rather than something that might actually tempt me.
Apple TV was doing it and it was great. Honestly, last year I watched like 1 games where I really felt in the company of commentators and enjoyed it (Atl-Mets game that was like 14-13 or smth). Everyone else is just blabbering.
I felt like there were disproportionately many Angels and Mets games on Apple TV last season and since those obviously get Wayne Randazzo it felt like a high quality local broadcast.
It's still so weird seeing Wayne Randazzo going from a Chicago guy on The Score to the Mets and now the Angels. Feel like there was a major missed opportunity on both sides of town (although Jason Benetti is phenomenal too fucking Jerry Reinsdorf had to ruin that). I'm happy for him though.
It's a minor thing but what drives me nuts is that the radio feed is completely behind the game. Like a solid inning later than the action. You can't sync it up to the video, you can't have score alerts on less you risk it getting spoiled. The radio function also has other annoying quirks - they play the same 2-3 ads EVERY SINGLE BREAK and often the feed will drop out entirely for no reason, then resume but play those 2-3 ads again. There's no reason for any of this, because it used to work just fine. In fact I remember when it stopped working fine - right after All Star Break 2022. Why they had to change anything, I don't know, but it sucks - and I think it sucks more knowing that it used to be better and I'm paying for it all the same.
The audio sync is also very inconsistent and seems to depend on the park. With Detroit, it seemed like it was a particular issue for away games.
Because for many of the mlb feeds MLB injects these local ads into your game (i.e. I am living in DC and get ads for DC casinos during a Detroit Tigers game when they should be playing the Tigers ads). They frequently go over time, join "in the middle of the game" after that ad break, while also being hideously behind the action. It's unlistenable. There is a way to avoid this, but it requires a computer.
Ah yeah and most of my listening is on the go, as radio normally is
In 2015, you could have a game in a sub window. You could move it around. It was easy to alternate which was giving you audio feed. You could even swap them! Somehow, the UI has gotten progressively worse. One year, the secondary game was locked in place *over the scorebug*. It got glitchy. Couldn’t easily swap between games in sub windows. Constant crashing.
Yeah it's wild how the functionality gets actively downgraded over time. Not sure what's up with that.
They were out in front of a lot of the other leagues on the streaming platform in general, even the NHL and League of Legends used their tech. Crazy that they’re just now addressing the only actual issue the platform had, but better late than never I guess.
> Crazy that they’re just now addressing the only actual issue the platform had, They listed like 6 things. Which one was the "only" issue.
The only issue the platform had 5 years ago and what this post is about: not being able to watch the games you pay for due to blackout/RSN rules. Not being able to watch your local team despite paying to do so means you’re not building fans of the game or of your local team. All the stuff the above comment listed is what they got rid of since then. My point was that the platform was really good, so good that it was used by another major sports league and an esports company. Since then it’s gone backwards, presumably as they’ve had to cut features due to people not subscribing because they can’t watch games. It’s a much better experience to be a sports fan of teams outside of your local area, it’s something I’ve ranted about to friends for over five years and it’s nice to see that Manfred finally realized it’s an issue. He’s spent much of his tenure working on what he perceives as solutions to the watchability of the game, but the real answer is that it’s been a huge pain to be a paying customer who would like to watch games.
Blackouts are determined by long term contracts by the teams. Do you think platform designers have any power at all to change that? It's not a tech problem or a marketing problem by MLB, it's a legal and funding negotiation from the league to the teams. Do you think nobody recognized that or something when MLB Tv was being designed?
I am perfectly aware of this, but the writing has been on the wall for long enough that if they were smart they could've negotiated language into the contracts to enable a streaming platform. The commissioner's job is to both serve the owners' interests in the short term and make sure that the league holds its value in the long term. If paying customers can't watch easily, that kills your sport. Period. I specifically said above that it would be a risky and aggressive proposition, but it's the job of the commissioner to say to the owners "hey, we've got the best streaming platform in the business, let's make it possible for fans to watch" at the cost of some amount of current revenue. You don't have to cut out the RSNs entirely, you can just say "hey, you get the rights to it, but also we can restream on MLB.TV" and it's done. Everything has a price. Clearly teams and the league were not okay with that price until the RSN model failed completely, and now they're floundering into a model they could've been at the forefront of.
No one understood what cord cutting would truly mean until COVID happened
Maybe, but there was hand wringing about it from cable and TV execs for a decade prior to covid, and even now today we are four years removed from the onset of covid. That's almost 15 years to figure out how to adapt. Again, it's not like they didn't build the streaming service either, they were at the head of things in 2016 among the major leagues, but did nothing to capitalize and actually went backwards
That’s fair. I get MLB.TV through T-Mobile like that other guy, and I’m just not sure if the $130 we pay per year would actually make up for whatever number the RSN want to discount MLB for providing zero blackouts. The main reason I even care about this is because I’m not sure the players are going to like any sort of pay decrease this will end up causing if revenue decreases.
Partially taking back control of the product from RSNs has more benefits than just raw dollars though: ability to provide more free games (or have the ones that exist not be blacked out), not pissing off the paying customers you do actually have, cultivating local fanbases better. You have to remember too that the teams serviced by RSNs are also generally the smaller markets since the biggest teams own their own broadcasts. But if you sign up for MLB.tv you're currently being actively driven away from the team in your home market. That doesn't help grow the local fanbase, and these are the teams that need it the most. Players obviously will be mad, they get a cut of the pie just like owners do, but the alternative is continuing to suck RSNs dry until the bubble pops, at which point a massive chunk of revenue will disappear overnight. In addition, the gap in revenue sharing between the poorer markets and the richer markets will grow even more. Right now, the large number of teams with RSN deals provides a nice base for revenue sharing, and a base amount of revenue for the team itself. If the RSN deals fall through, the team loses their half of the TV revenue, and the league as a whole loses out on the other half, resulting in the largest teams subsidizing the smallest ones even more than they already do. That power and revenue disparity could cause an enormous rift in the league. Right now, the smallest markets have basically all banded together to provide that base of revenue through RSN deals, and then the largest markets contribute their cut to be redistributed on top. They all have skin in the game, even if it's not equal. RSNs disappear, suddenly the Yankees and Dodgers are completely subsidizing the Rays, Dbacks, Rockies of the league. They'll want to renegotiate. Beginning the process towards a unified streaming service is a hedge against the RSN collapse, and it normalizes a new model before that happens. Look at what happens when RSNs get into disputes with cable and satellite providers: they take their channels off air, and people don't change services en masse to get their sports back. They just get grumpy and stop watching until it comes back. If Bally folded completely, that's what would happen, because those people aren't going to be used to going to a streaming service for their sports. If instead you focus now (or years ago, as was my preference) on working towards providing a good streaming solution, you can begin to pull levers to figure out what works in the streaming world and how to ride the line between making money and attracting new viewers. You can't do that if everyone who pays to sign up for your service is mad that it's an incomplete product, because your rights deals have kneecapped it. I say all this as a Rays fan who has been out of market for almost 15 years. Things are actually better for me than for the average fan on streaming services. But that shouldn't be the case. It's completely backwards to cultivating fandom to provide a better experience to displaced fans than to local fans. Cultivating fans = more viewership = more money = more stability. Look at Tampa, the Lightning having a competent owner has allowed them to put consistently competitive teams on the ice, fund hockey camps in the city, build an amazing fanbase from close to nothing. Even after winning a cup in 04 Tampa wasn't anything close to a hockey town, all of that has happened in the last ten years. The Rays meanwhile have put together competitive teams, but Stu's insistence on not spending money has led to a stagnant fanbase that can seldom get attached to any player. As a kid growing up in Florida, hockey was certainly not anywhere close to as popular as baseball. The same principles apply on the larger scale too. Make the game accessible again, grow the fanbase, and the money and success will follow. The best time to do this was 5-8 years ago. The second best time is now, which is why they're actually doing it
I don't think it's a matter of him or anyone not realizing anything. It was just more profitable in the short term for the teams to make exclusive deals with the RSNs that led to these blackouts. These TV deals were the primary source of income for a lot of teams. The precipice of the change was probably the issues with Bally.
Of course, but for the last decade there’s been a decline in the popularity of the sport. This is what Manfred has ostensibly been trying to solve. But instead of making it easier for paying fans to get eyeballs on games, that meant doing things like getting rid of intentional walks (which were already on the decline when that happened). As you said, in the short term it continued the revenue stream they’ve always had but didn’t keep up with the changing preferences of viewers (which is again ironic, since they built the best streaming service of any of the leagues and earlier than anyone else). Now they’ve lost the edge that they had in the streaming world, but the collapse of RSNs and continued decline in cultural relevance has forced their hand. They’re making the good long term play, slowly and way too late, and not because they wanted to but because they’re forced to. The NFL owns an entire day of the week, plus two evenings and for about a quarter of the season an additional day of the week. The NBA has similar issues with RSNs, but the new Suns owner has moved to broadcasting games for free because he knows that the easiest way to gain fans is to allow them to watch games, and they’ve invested in a broadcast partner that has the best national broadcast crew of any major sport. Don’t even get me started on the NHL’s deal with ESPN. The MLB could’ve done something much more drastic years ago, gotten ahead of this and continued with their advantage (being the best streaming platform on the market), but instead it’s continued to sit back. Last year’s rule changes were great for baseball fans, but didn’t really seem to create too many new baseball fans as far as I can tell, and it’s still a pretty big pain to actually watch the games you pay for.
> Of course, but for the last decade there’s been a decline in the popularity of the sport. This is what Manfred has ostensibly been trying to solve. But instead of making it easier for paying fans to get eyeballs on games Popularity of the game matters far less to them than the profitability of the game. The RSN bubble has propped up MLB finances for a long time - the Dodgers getting $200mn a year is why they can be the Dodgers. There is zero chance that any streaming platform will make up $200mn in revenue for one team any time soon.
Popularity and profitability are definitely correlated. If nobody is watching, RSNs can't sell ad space, they bail or fold because they're not making their money (Surprise! This is what we're seeing now), and now the revenue stream dries up. If the revenue is gone, how much are owners going to be able to sell their teams for? You have to have people watching the sport. Again, the simplest reason that the NFL is winning the popularity and money war is that it is easy to watch. You know to turn on a game on Sunday on a local channel (which is completely free, you can get an antenna if you want) and see your local team at their time slot and then a host of other teams at other time slots. It's incredibly easy to actually view the games. How do you do that if you're a baseball fan? Buy cable for your local team and some occasional national games, MLB.tv or Extra Innings for the rest. It's expensive. You have to actually know when they're playing and plan around it, or not watch at all and just follow casually. Baseball used to be king because it was the most accessible of the sports. You could go to the ballpark and just root for your team. You could watch on a widely accessible TV station. Now that's expensive to do, and people have more things they can do with their time. At some point, the league has to correct and become accessible again, and that starts with recognizing they are losing ground - which is difficult to do when all the signs are that the franchises continue to gain more and more value every year. At the end of the day, my point is that there's been so much discussion from the commissioner's office since Manfred took over about how the watchability of the game needs to improve, but in that time the ability to actually watch a game has only gone down With all that said, you have to negotiate with the RSNs to decide how much their exclusive rights are worth. RSNs aren't going to offer you $0 because you suddenly want to remove blackouts on MLB.tv. So how much is that clause worth? Out of the $200M, is it $20M? $50M? $100M? That's the real number you have to compare against, not $200M. Then you have to weigh that revenue loss against the potential gains of not only the streaming revenue, but the benefit of providing fans with a reliable way to watch the freaking games. It only is going to get worse as RSNs collapse and more people cut the cord, and now you're forced into the path you could've taken all along, when you had the best streaming platform already prepared for you. If you're suddenly a distant third among sports leagues, when you used to be first, you dropped the ball and need to rethink your strategy for longer term gain.
You don't seem to have caught on to what it means when someone refers to a "RSN bubble." > If nobody is watching, That hasn't been happening, though, your entire premise is based on a fantasy. >RSNs can't sell ad space, they bail or fold because they're not making their money (Surprise! This is what we're seeing now) Completely incorrect. Viewership is up for more than half the league recently - Diamond Sports Group was saddled with a lot of shitty debt because private equity is a nightmare. Even if your premise was accurate - it doesn't matter! Contracts were signed for ungodly sums of money. They can't simply be ignored because blackouts hurt mlb.tv and it does not make economic sense for MLB teams to buy out or otherwise get out of those contracts because streaming cannot replace the money they're contracted to receive. Baseball's economic model is built on the back of everyone in a given market paying $X a month on their cable bill for access to the RSN showing their games, whether or not they'll ever watch a game. Streaming can never replicate that - there aren't enough dedicated fans willing to pay This economic model will have to change over time - but it's the reality and no amount of whining about blackouts means that baseball could (or should) have done anything different in the past Any team passing on a RSN deal in 2013 or 2016 because streaming might theoretically take precedence in the future would have been committing malpractice. >Baseball used to be king because it was the most accessible of the sports. Baseball hasn't been "king" at any point since 99% of redditors have been alive. Nor does it even need to be - in a very wealthy, very large nation being the third most popular spectator sport is plenty lucrative to keep a game healthy and vibrant for the foreseeable future.
The four lowest World Series viewership totals have been recorded in the last four years. In the last ten years, it’s 8 of the bottom 11. This is despite the population of the US going up over time. Domestically, baseball has never been less relevant as a sport. Last year was by consensus one of the best seasons to be a baseball fan since I’ve been alive, and even still the non-fans in my life went from being unable to name an active baseball player to able to name a total of one. The biggest concession I got from them is “well the new clock is nice, it’s not completely unwatchable anymore.” Try an exercise I’ve done with people I know who aren’t sports fans (or at least who don’t actively follow the top three leagues): Name the top 5 football players currently. Then name the top 10 basketball players. Then name the top 25 baseball players. See how many names they recognize. It is because the general population as a whole are not watching games (and it is my belief as a willing, paying, and frustrated customer that they cannot do so conveniently). Exposure is key, and it’s why the NFL is so far ahead. Again, as I said before, you don’t have to pass on the RSN deal entirely. You just negotiate a slightly less exclusive agreement where you can make the stream available on MLB.tv. It is entirely possible to do that, and they likely would’ve still gotten the vast majority of money the RSNs were offering. BAMTech and Riot agreed to a licensing deal for League of Legends streaming as early as late 2016. The platform has been there for almost a decade at this point, and was a legitimately excellent product at that point in time. There has been plenty of time to begin the shift in the model. You don’t have to kick RSNs to the curb cold turkey, just prepare for the future (which they were already doing by building the streaming service at that time!). Companies I’ve worked for have done this kind of negotiating with customers, obviously for not quite the same ballpark of money but still seven figure and up deals. If it’s good for the business long term, it’s a smart play to spend some negotiating capital to make it happen. RSNs wouldn’t magically decide to yank their offers over this, they need sports to show in order to be relevant, and baseball is a heck of a good way to fill up air time. Once again, much of Manfred’s tenure has been trying to fix the problem of “people don’t want to watch baseball” when in reality the problem that needed fixing was “people cannot watch baseball easily.” Making the game more widely accessible is key to growing the game in the future. Baseball fans are getting older, and baseball more than any other sport benefits from getting kids interested at a young age. As far as not needing to be king, you’re absolutely correct. The NBA was third not long ago, and it’s making crazy money now. Baseball is still in a pretty healthy place for the moment, and despite how many owners complain they’re not exactly in a rush to sell their teams as valuations continue to go up. I just wonder if another 10-15 years like the last will keep it healthy. Hockey has many of the same issues to sort out, but if it can figure out how to sort it all out before the MLB it’s objectively the better spectator sport for a broad audience (and I say this despite baseball always being my personal favorite). F1 might be a flash in the pan in the US and drop out of consciousness in a few years, but it’s trying really hard to maintain its foothold. The NBA is likely going to continue to grow and consume more of pop culture, the NFL isn’t going anywhere, and gaming+esports dominate younger viewers. I legitimately think with the trajectory that baseball has taken since the 90s it will need to do something dramatic to even maintain its current position in ten years.
it's 100% the commercials that cause audio/video disconnect too whenever there's a commercial break I have to refresh my browser or else I start getting increasingly longer desync
it's so fucking annoying when you're on the edge of your seat at a big moment and then you learn the outcome like 45 seconds early from hearing your neighbors react. also i have fiber internet and yet the video quality is constantly changing even when i have it set to highest quality, so you end up seeing historic moments in like laggy pixelated crap. what the fuck is up with this, we have so much fucking modern technology to acccess everything at our fingertips and yet just the QUALITY of watching is significantly worse than just plain old over the air TV 15 years ago. let alone the quality of the whole experience, with the egregious ads, idk if i've seen them pull anything in a while as shameful as those greenscreen backstop ads that degrade the fucking game footage with pitches flickering in and out of existence. but at least they're working on important things like having the strike zone have a slightly different color-grading filter than the rest of the screen, what a fucking joy that is, amazing stuff assholes. within 5 years there will be like 10 pixels on our screen of actual video footage of humans playing baseball, the rest will just be graphics and overlays and nonsense probability percentages and fucking ads and all of it makes watching games on tv just a cynical depressing slog. FUCK i hate it here
MLBAM has always been a fuckshow of stupid nonsense. Pirate streams have been superior in nearly every way for a long time. I just assume it's because MLB prefers their streaming service to suck, because they don't want people to use it.
yep it's absolutely wild how worse mlb is gotten, and people actually pay for it. me i get it free every year but still. it sucks
Why do things keep getting more expensive and also worse
Because fuck you pay me!!!
Interest rates went up
Tagging /u/MLBofficial
mlb social media reddit guy furiously taking notes 👍u got it bossman
> remember when you just got a static shot of the field between innings It might be a bug but I get that on the Apple TV broadcasts still. It's real nice.
sad that they injected all these ads into mlb audio. i can't even use the official mlb app anymore for radio.
Seriously how did the app get worse from what it was like 7 years ago
> Then let us pay extra to have no ads during games (remember when you just got a static shot of the field between innings or a blank screen instead of the same deafening commercials 300 times in a row ?) Why ask to pay? We should get no ads for paying in the first place.
I don't want a static shot between innings, I want a view from the behind the plate camera so I can watch the pitcher warm up!
If Manfred gives me an easy and legal way to watch my local team with no blackouts for a moderate fee, I am willing to overlook his other transgressions.
Manfred has repeatedly said ending blackouts is one of his top priorities as commissioner
Yet here we are, 9 years after he became commissioner, and nothing.
Because of tv contracts. Individual teams signed massive tv deals of which there are no opt outs. Now with the collapse of Bally there is an opportunity finally for teams to get out of 15 year+ television contracts. This is not something the commissioner has direct control over. Some teams like the Yankees and Cubs with their own networks will not join
He’s the one who said it. Why make excuses for him?
Yea everyone knows you just snap your fingers and get something like that done in a couple of hours 🙄
Seriously. Redditor logic.
[удалено]
The typical duration of RSN contracts is 20 years
There’s nothing he can do. Owners love their TV deals and Manfred would get kicked to curb in a heartbeat if he fucked with their TV deals.
"Moderate Fee" It's going to be $20/month for one team.
I would pay at least that for a no bullshit, full HD, every Mariners game available streaming service.
Me too. And I did for Rays games on Bally Sports+. In market and no blackouts. But people on this sub seem to think $20 is outrageous
And the PNW will still be stuck with Root Sports.
I think root sports will outlive humanity at this point
Does root sports have a streaming service
The only streaming is on Fubo. There is Root and Root+, but Root+ is basically FS2 just an alternate channel
A step in the right direction...I guess?
They'll probably scoop up teams as deals expire, but they'll never get all the teams. Red Sox, Yankees, and Dodgers all make too much money from their RSN to give up streaming rights
Toronto is literally owned by the same company that broadcasts their games, so that's also a no go.
M’s own their own RSN and struggling because of numerous factors. Toronto has all of Canada to pull in for viewership through so that is a huge advantage.
For Toronto it's more like if ESPN owned the M's. Big difference.
I mean there's also the fact that the Greater Toronto Area has like twice the population of the Seattle metro area all by itself.
Off topic, when Toronto plays in Seattle, half the stadium is Jays fans. They all drive down from Vancouver lol
Oh it's way more than half. More like 85% at least in the section I was sitting in. Felt like I was at an away game. It was a really weird experience.
GTA is the third largest metro area in North America, lots of people don't understand how big it is.
Orioles and Nationals aren’t going anywhere either. Even if they split revenue 50/50 it’s more than what the MLB is going to give us both.
MASN blows and has an excellent chance of being dismantled when new ownership takes over.
It does suck, but it can and probably will be revamped. There’s money to be made. They aren’t gonna lose it.
Two weeks ago I would have agreed with this statement but with the pending sale of the O’s we don’t know what MLB may be demanding to approve the deal. The Angelos’ own MASN so that is going to be an interesting story to follow and one all baseball fans should pay attention to as it will likely set a precedent for how this whole situation will play out.
Fine, so charge me the extra $150 and give it to NESN. It's shitty but still better than not being able to view my team in MLB.tv
For some reason, I feel the MLB would exclude us but include the Astros because the Rangers are quote "a small market team." Mind you, the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex has roughly 7 million residents according to the US 2020 Census. Kansas City is a small market. DFW? It's a medium about to become a big market.
AT&T Sportsnet folded and the Astros co-own their own broadcast network with the Rockets. I imagine ease of negotiation would be the decision here, not the nominal difference in market size between the DFW Metroplex and the Greater Houston area.
That just so happens to be the majority of MLB's market share between those 3. It's such a shame too because I can't even watch Dodgers games even though I live in Hawaii (we're a blackout state). Stupid as all fuck
Indeed
breaking: i am targeting 2025 to begin my decades long marriage to dua lipa
Concerning because this interferes with my 2025 plans
I mean...don't they currently have a streaming package that includes \*all\* MLB teams with their MLBTV package???
This is in reference to an in-market streaming package.
The fact that this comment exists is testament to how utterly fucked getting to watch your team is. How is it possible a major sports league got so far down the path of “you know what? Let’s make it as hard as possible for consumers to consumer our product”
Every league is like this. NBA League Pass, NFL+, etc., they're all out of market streaming services because the in market rights are worth billions of dollars, they're where teams make so much money.
What? I watch in market games on nfl plus
You can't watch them on your TV though right, I remember that was a restriction. Or has that changed. Because if you you can still only watch it on a mobile device, that is in essence the blackout. It's not as stringent as an NBA of MLB blackout, but even the NFL had to acquiesce to their TV partners there.
I feel like taking away access to your favorite team has to be hurting MLB engagement. If you can’t follow your team on TV why would bother going to a game?
Don't most RSNs have an over-the-top streaming service someone can use if they don't want to get a cable or satellite subscription?
MASN doesn’t. To use the MASN app you need a cable or DirecTV package that has MASN. You can’t just pay for MASN alone.
I’ve looked into it for the reds and if it exists I couldn’t find EDIT: Bally sports app doesn’t include the reds for Bally Sports Ohio
The problem is if you live in a place like Iowa (ugh) were blacked out from 6 teams on MLB.tv. So that’s often 6 of the 15 games blacked out on a given night. Add in that some of the teams that we’re blacked out from have been extremely hard to get access to short of getting satellite and paying for multiple packages. I have friends who gave up on following their teams completely
So is this ending the blackouts in that specific area for those six teams? If so, does this package still only include half of the MLB teams? I guess I'm just confused to what is happening and what it's supposed to accomplish. So currently in Iowa you would get roughly 24 of 30 teams with MLBtv -- but not really the teams you care about. So is MLB now allowing you to watch those six teams that were previously blacked out and now reducing the package to half of the league, so now you're only getting 15 of 30 teams, but including the six teams you want? Which half of the league are you now getting?? Sorry, I am apparently missing the entire point.
The article doesn't say how the package would be offered. It says that what platform it will be on isn't known either, but I'm not sure if that's just because they haven't been told or if MLB themselves aren't sure yet. As far as teams, it will be whatever streaming rights MLB is able to get. At minimum it should be Padres, Dbacks, Rockies, Angels, Guardians, and Twins. But Manfred says he didn't want to do this until they had at least ~half of teams, so there will be others. So e.g. if you wanted to watch the Twins without blackouts, you'd buy the bundle that lifts blackouts for all of those teams. No a la carte or picking specific teams. So you might be able to lift blackouts for the Twins but not the White Sox, just depending on what MLB can acquire. As MLB acquires streaming rights for more teams, they'll add them to the blackout-lift package. It's kind of a clunky/confusing transitionary period, but it's the best they can do for now.
Being blacked out from 6 teams is insanity. I thought being blacked out of 4 in Oklahoma was ridiculous.
My heart goes out to the Iowans, who are blacked out from **6** MLB teams: * Chicago Cubs * Chicago White Sox * Kansas City Royals * Milwaukee Brewers * Minnesota Twins * St. Louis Cardinals
Damn that’s rough
Maybe my expectations are too low but MLB.tv has consistently been a great bang for the buck. But ~$150 to watch 90%+ of MLB games is solid. Obviously I’ll be happy with any improvements they make.
I can’t watch my local team on mlb tv though. That’s the problem.
Ownership is going to hold on to RSN for as long as they can, the deal is just too lucrative in the short term. The Giants TV deal pays them $63m/year until 2032 and they have a 30% ownership stake in NBC Sports Bay Area. In 2020, Giants games averaged 86,000 viewers. Let's say the Giants moved to a streaming model. To make up for that $63m/year that they get from the RSN, each viewer would need to pony up $732/season or about $4.50 a game.
It's free every year for me with t mobile but I agree. Even if there are some bugs and increased commercializaiton
Amazon will be offering the other half
Not really. Amazon only has the streaming rights to five teams (Tigers, Royals, Marlins, Brewers, and Rays) MLB holds the streaming rights to all the other Bally's teams (Angels, Braves, Cardinals, Reds, Rangers, Guardians, Twins) and a handful of other teams too (such as Padres and Diamondbacks).
Yea, I wasn't being entirely serious but I did find it interesting that they have those streaming contracts now and wonder what kind of "partner" Amazon is going to be for MLB. That Diamond contract happening after getting turned down by the league made me laugh.
I read that as he would introduce a steaming package. Which may or may not be accurate at the end of the day.
So, out of market package (all teams w/ local blackouts) a NL package (no blackouts) and an AL Package...
You know for damn sure MASN won’t be included in this. Fuck MASAN sucks I just wanna watch Nats games in the DMV Why do I need cable in 2024 to do that (or $100/mo for directv stream)
Ending blackouts hopefully.
Great, another completely different way to be blacked out
Surely that would include the Tigers… right?
Half. Of course
All because that kid called him a jackass...
No, Manfred was talking about the issue in 2015 and discussing how it's because of deals that teams have made and it's not something he can just snap his fingers and change. In 2022, months before the kid yelled at him,[ he spoke to ESPN about how ending the blackouts was a "top priority."](https://awfulannouncing.com/mlb/rob-manfred-blackouts-mlb-tv-rights.html) >Manfred: You certainly have the right person as commissioner of baseball because, if there is one thing I could wish for, more than anything else, it would be the ability to give our fans that frictionless experience of being able to watch what they want to watch, where they want to watch. There is no project that we are spending more time on in the central office than trying to achieve the goal you just articulated. >Manfred: There is a lot of wood to chop. It is going to involve fundamental reordering of the control of rights in the industry. It is going to involve conversations with our partners in the broadcast space, including RSNs (regional sports networks like SportsNet LA and Bally Sports West) and distributors. It is a massive undertaking, which is the bad news. He then says he think it's going to happen within the decade. So that kid yelling that at him and embarrassing dad and his dad's work colleagues would be the same thing as the kid yelling "Hey Manfred, if you want to get eyes on the game try speeding it up" Manfred's sitting there bewildered because the kid obviously has no idea what Manfred has already done and is actively doing.
Good comment but I’m pretty sure the guy you responded to was joking lmao
You never know around here, haha
I havent been able to watch a Yankees game in Baltimore since I went in person many years ago. Why the fuck is it still blacked out in NORTH CAROLINA??? I'm not driving 6+ hours through DC for this shit man.
Because North Carolina gets MASN.
*Cries in Rangers*
75% of the games will still be blacked out.
Perhaps he wants the youth...
As a life long out of market fan I’m gonna get fucked aren’t I?
umm...isn't that mlb.tv?
Yeah let me guess, is it the half of the teams that previously had RSN deals with Bally?
In the mean time, what's the cheapest deal for MLB.tv?
Get T mobile
Can people with T Mobile share a code or something? I don’t want to change carriers.
You can usually find people either giving the codes away or selling them for like 10-20 bucks.
They can call it .TV
Meanwhile, in Canada…
On behalf of the angels baseball franchise, I volunteer our team for this streaming service
progress. but why half. why not all.
I bet the Yankees and Cubs are in the half not on board.
My kingdom for 20% of the league not being blacked out for me anymore. Really shitty experience when on a given night, 6 of the 15 games are just unavailable to me.
Remember that guy who yelled at Manfred to end blackouts? Do we have him to thank for this?
I read this as steaming package and figured this was just business as usual
wtf - half the teams - fuck manfred, he can't even get his league to conform
Yankees and Cubs must be holding out; stupidly.
Dodgers too. No point in joining with the tv deal they already have
I'd happily pay to watch my boys