RSSBaseball’s Blackout Rules Suck
April 10, 2010
kosmo - See all 763 of my articles
I have been a fan of the Colorado Rockies since their inaugural season in 1993. I had deserted the Cubs the previous winter after losing confidence in the front office in the aftermath of Greg Maddux leaving town. I decided make a clean break, and picked an expansion team to follow.
I live 800 miles from Denver. This means that I’ve only been to one game at Coors Field, and that I have rarely had the opportunity to catch a game on TV. Unless they play the Cubs or the Cardinals, the game is not on TV. I have been a longtime purchaser of MLB.com’s audio package, and have listened to a lot of games over the years.
This year would be different. I purchased the MLB Extra Innings package through DirecTV. I would now be able to watch every Rockies game! I looked forward to opening day.
Imagine my frustration when I found out that that game was blacked out. Why? Because Iowa is considered a “local market” for the opponents of the Rockies, the Milwaukee Brewers. I have lived in Iowa nearly all my life, and I have met exactly one Brewers fan during this time. He was in town on a temporary assignment and was from Wisconsin.
Iowa is considered a local market for six teams – the Cubs, Cardinals, White Sox, Twins, Brewers, and Royals.
The main reason for blackouts is to force people to watch game on local and regional channels. This would make some sense – if those teams were actually available to me on local and regional channels. I can tune in to nearly every Cubs games. Most White Sox games are also available to me. A smattering of Cardinals games appear on the WB during the season.
As for the Twins, Brewers, and Royals? There is no way for me to tune into these games.
There is also gross inequality in the system. My friend Lazy Man hails from Boston. How many teams are blacked out in Boston? Just one – the Red Sox. The Sox are readily available on a regional channel. Lazy Man currently resides in the Bay area. How many teams are blacked out there? Two – the Giants and A’s. Again, both teams are readily available on local and regional channels. Contrast this with Iowa and Nevada, which each have six teams blacked out.
The fact that I am paying a premium price for this package makes me even more upset. If Major League Baseball is really that concerned that my ability to tune into a Rockies – Brewers game via MLB Extra Innings will somehow take money away from the local stations that carry the Brewers games, there’s a really easy solution for that. Take some of the money that they get from me (via the conduit of DirecTV) and pay some of it to those stations. Problem solved. Baseball has a happy customer who will renew Extra Innings next year and the Brewers stations are being fairly compensated.
Want to know what teams are blacked out in which areas? Here’s a nifty map. It’s from 2006, and while there may be slightly more updated maps available, I have found this one to be the easiest to understand.
Apr 11, 2010 @ 18:22:39
Yes, baseball needs to get its you-know-what together. I ran into a similar situation about 5 years ago. I moved 10 miles south, going from getting Comcast SporstNet Philadelphia (which carried the Phillies), to getting Comcast SportsNet MidAtlantic (which carried the Orioles). Unfortunately, though, it was still a Phillies blackout area if wanted to get the baseball package. So, like you, games were blacked out for me in the baseball package that I couldn’t even get on TV. Fortunately, just before the 2008 season, with the Phillies’ rise in popularity and years of clamoring from the fans, CSN Philly was added to the cable package. I still don’t get the high def version, but I’ll take it. MLB television policy = sheer lunacy, and a way for baseball to suffer self-inflicted wounds.
.-= Evan @ 40Tech´s last blog ..What’s On My iPhone — Part 3 =-.
May 14, 2010 @ 19:21:18
I live in Gettyburg, PA, 150 miles from Philadelphia. The Orioles and Nationals are what’s on my tv. I had the Extra Innings package for 3 years to watch the Phillies until suddenly getting blacked out starting in 2008. I have no way to watch Phillies games anymore, Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia is not available on my local Comcast cable line-up. The Phillies have told me that Comcast is blacking out games 200 miles from the staduim regardless if games are included with the local cable line-up. That way Phillies fans can’t buy the Extra Innings package from Directv as the cable-satellite war continues. It is basically an abuse of the black out rules due to corporate greed. And when it comes to corporate greed in sports the fans are the ones who usually lose out.
May 14, 2010 @ 19:49:36
@ Chris – Several months ago (in a different article), Evan (of 40 Tech) pointed out that Comcast can play by different rules in PHI than anyone else. Everyone else has to make broadcast available in the local market. Comcast doesn’t. Why not? Because they don’t use the public airwaves to transmit – they use privately owned fiber optic lines.
That sucks, man. People should not be prevented from watching their favorite teams.