The logic goes, if you’re a loyal customer – be it your local grocery store, or Major League Baseball – you should be rewarded. You, after all, buy more goods than the average fan, and therefore, are adding to the bottom line.

But, for Major League Baseball, it’s not the case. In fact, you’re treated worse.

At least that’s the case if you purchase MLB Extra Innings or MLB.TV.

Since this is the beginning of the season, the annual rite of passage hits my in-box and Twitter feed. “Is MLB going to do anything about the blackout policy?” Here’s the short answer: No.

And, it’s not just, “No” this year, it’s likely to be years to come – maybe never – before the Lords of Baseball decide to do the right thing for its best customers. When asked if the topic of the blackout policy had been a serious topic for the owners to discuss as part of any recent agenda items, a high placed MLB source said, “It has certainly been a topic of conversation at owners meetings but it is a complicated issue with the regional TV networks that have contractual rights to specific territories.”

To that I say, bollocks.

I get that the arcane and convoluted television territories are needed (select Read More to see them). Owners need to keep their ownership brethren from encroaching, then draw up the territories as they see fit. But, if you’re trying to sell me that in blacking out a Mariners fan in Butte, Montana he or she will be more likely to drive to Seattle to see a game because it’s blacked out well, the owners are dumber than we’ve been led to believe.

And, when you think about it, this issue has gotten worse, not better. With Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad sales skyrocketing (a recent Piper Jaffray report  said Apple shipped 2.4 million to 2.6 million iPad 2s in March, and that a survey of teenage 4,500 students had 37 percent indicating they expect to buy an iPhone in the next six months, with 20 percent of them expected to purchase tablets, as well), then the associated MLB.TV subscription needed to watch streaming games means more and more consumers are caught in the ridiculous blackout policy.

Major League Baseball, you don’t care as much as you should for your best fans. Not exposing your product to its core fan base is terrible business judgment.

++++   ++++   ++++

Those thinking of purchasing MLB Extra Innings or MLB.TV, here’s resources you need to know

If you are looking to watch games streamed to your computer, Sony, Roku, Boxee, or Apple device, you need to read MLB.TV’s fine print. Here is the policy:

Regular Season Local Live Blackout: All live games on MLB.TV and available through MLB.com At Bat are subject to local blackouts. Such live games will be blacked out in each applicable Club's home television territory, regardless of whether that Club is playing at home or away. If a game is blacked out in an area, it is not available for live game viewing. If you are an MLB.TV Premium subscriber and not within either Club's home television territory, the applicable game will be available as an archived game as soon as possible after the conclusion of the game. If you are an MLB.TV Premium subscriber within either Club's home television territory or an MLB.TV subscriber in any territory, the applicable game will be available as an archived game approximately 90 minutes after the conclusion of the game. Archived games are not available through MLB.com At Bat.

In addition, note:

• These blackout restrictions apply regardless of whether a Club is home or away and regardless of whether or not a game is televised in a Club's home television territory.
• All live Toronto Blue Jays games are blacked out throughout the entire country of Canada.
• Additional teams may also be subject to blackout in parts of Canada based on their region.
• All live games will be blacked out in the U.S. territories of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands during the MLB regular season.

• Make sure and check the zip code locators at the bottom of the this webpage to see how you are impacted.
• For MLB Extra Innings, make sure and read the fine print on this page. There is no zip code locator, so use the MLB.TV link above.

SELECT READ MORE TO SEE MLB’S TELEVISION TERRITORIES

See the map below for MLB’s television territories:

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Welcome to the 2011 Business of Sports Network Autism Challenge

Maury Brown is the Founder and President of the Business of Sports Network, which includes The Biz of Baseball, The Biz of Football, The Biz of Basketball and The Biz of Hockey, as well as a contributor to FanGraphs and Forbes SportsMoney. He is available for hire or freelance. Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network.

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Comments (20)

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Extra Innings
written by GoRedSoxNC, April 07, 2011

I live near Raleigh, NC, which has been designated "Orioles" AND "Nationals" territory, and therefore can't watch the Red Sox whenever they play either of these teams (don't get me started on MASN dispute). And you wouldn't BELIEVE how MLB advertised their GameDay online radio package - "NO blackout restrictions!". Pisses me off and yet what's the option? Missing your team's games - and don't they know it.

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Blackouts vs. Driving to Games
written by JeffLac, April 07, 2011

I'm almost positive that the blackout is not to encourage the guy in Montana to drive to Seattle, but rather to get him to nag his cable company to include Fox Sports Seattle, or whoever it is that owns the rights to the Mariners games. See the above poster about MASN for another example.

I see the blackout policy as really protecting the media holdings of the teams. They're all petrified that if enough fans start watching on MLB.TV, they'll lose the ability to rake the cable companies for viewer fees. Consider that the regional sports networks (RSNs) charge the cable companies a fee per subscriber to carry their channel. It doesn't matter if 2 people watch the channel or 2 million, the network still gets fee multiplied by total subscribers to the package. Of course, highly watched channels are more desirable, but in the end, every local cable company is forced to carry their RSN due to the outrage of the fans. Imagine there is only 5% of the population that really cares if they get the RSN. It seems like the cable company would be in good shape to negotiate, but the 5% tend to be the most vocal customers and the cable company would have to weather a storm waged by the sports section of the newspaper as well.

Ultimately, MLB Advanced Media is doing a good, but not great, job with their media holdings by utilizing MLB.TV. They allow fans to receive the vast majority of games at a relatively fair price (a little less than $1 per game for the highest quality a*suming you watch only one team). This is much better than what the NFL is up to in the same space. However, it's time for MLB to break out of the RSN model and start to be more aggressive with the teams and their sports networks. Ultimately, the biggest losers here will be the teams that actually own their RSNs: Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles, and others because they will lose the ability to charge cable companies extremely high subscriber fees. Eventually, as contracts get renegotiated between the teams and the independent RSNs, the other teams will lose out some money as well. It's up to MLB Advanced Media to figure out how to offset these losses with additional revenue gains via something like MLB.TV. I would think that embracing the new distribution medium (as Maury talks about with portable devices above) could be a good way to introduce new monetization into the process. Finally, it could help the sport regain revenue parity, as more revenue would flow to MLB to be redistributed, rather than directly to the clubs.

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...
written by Fred, April 07, 2011

You're wrong - territorial restrictions are not only unnecessary, they're destroying the competitive balance of the sport. With a national contract sublicensed to regional carriers such that each club gets 1/30 of the revenue, the Yankees unfair and unearned advantage would disappear overnight.

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...
written by bmfc1, April 07, 2011

Well said. Those of us that buy Extra Innings and mlb.tv are paying more money to watch the game we love and yet, we're subjected to absurd restrictions. E.g, if the Mets are playing in a FOX game but it's not shown in my area, I cannot see the game on either EI or mlb.tv because MLB granted FOX an exclusive window. It's not like I'm going to say "oh well, the Mets aren't on so I'll watch the Red Sox"--I just won't watch baseball at all during that period. Is that better for the game?

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Overlap - highlight's the owners indifference to MLB customers.
written by Vegas_Jeff, April 07, 2011

It seems each time of the year at the beginning of the season, I read an article and wonder, what other company is so indifferent to its customer base, or yes there are the airlines but that is a different subject.

I live in Las Vegas and follow the Cardinals. If the SF Giants ownership group believes that by blocking me from watching these two team in SF, it is encouraging me to make the 15+ hour drive, I question their ability to manage the more complex aspects of their business.

I'm blocked from the A's, Giant's, Dodgers, Angel's, Padre's and Diamondbacks... how does this make senses... All of these teams can't claim Vegas as a home market.. I would understand if it was the two LA Teams, the rest is pure indifference, and they will continue to do it because they can.

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Phillies fan
written by Linda, April 07, 2011

What's even worse about the MLB.TV blackout policy is how they advertise; they word their ads to make it sound like you can watch your local team, but slip in the phrase "when you're away from home" at the beginning when it could be easily missed. It borders on deceptive.

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Not to mention...
written by keithdc, April 07, 2011

the poor performance and horrific customer service of mlb.tv when you actually find a game you are not blacked out of.

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Head writer, www.johnsbigleaguebaseballblog.blogspot.com
written by John Sharp, April 07, 2011

I live in Jacksonville, Florida, and this is what I go through...

I get both the Marlins and the Rays on basic cable, but the channel that shows the Braves, CSS, doesn't show them in Jacksonville...NEVER, and yet, when you try to watch the braves games scheduled on MLB Network, it's blacked out, even though they NEVER show the Braves games on our local CSS. It's just plain stupid.

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Question
written by Ryan (Boston), April 07, 2011

If I live in Boston, but am physically outside of my region during game time, will Red Sox games be blacked out?

This was the case two years ago, as my location was based on my credit card's zip code and not my cell phone's GPS. Thus every Sox game was blacked out for the season, which drove me away from the product. Hilarious that these geniuses found a way to black out exactly the games that I wanted to watch, and no others.

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Getting around the system?
written by Gldsndz, April 07, 2011

Why can't the company with contract create an app to stream their games? If my local Giants are blackouted on MLB.tv, can Comcast Sports Net(owner of the TV rights), create an app where I can pay to stream the games in the local market.

Conversely, since you are geolocated on the iPad, why can't MLB.tv just broadcast local commercials and split revenue with the with everyone that needs a cut.

This would be great, wife gets to watch What Not to Where on cable, I get to watch the game on the iPad. Comcast Sports Net still gets to broadcast local commercials my way.

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...
written by Barry Deutsch, April 07, 2011

I believe that one quick fix is available to MLB that would make sense. Those of us who travel and own an I-Pad know that several apps ask for permission to and then use your current location. So, when I am in Denver or New York and clearly cannot either go to a Marlins game or watch the local telecast, why not lift the curtain?

As an extension to that thought, why not lift the curtain for seasons ticket holders who clearly do go to the stadium when they can?

MLB can do better even while clinging to the Local Rights business model.

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...
written by tigerdog1, April 07, 2011

The biggest issue for me is Saturday afternoon baseball, when Fox sports tells us which game we have to watch. I hate that.
Next is the way that they cut off the broadcast before the post game show comes on, trying to force us to also subscribe to the Sports channel package, mainly all Fox sports channels. On those channels, all the games are blacked out. Other than the post game show, they have nothing to offer that isn't already on the local FSN channel, and I don't need to have 22 channels with the Worst Damn Sports Show at the same time.
Ban all blackouts!

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I feel for ya John Sharp
written by Lonestar, April 09, 2011

I am a die hard 'Stros fan (as if that is not punishment enough) living in OKC. OKC is supposedly the home territory for the Rangers, Cardinals, Royals, and Astros. Problem is, there are two fox channels that show baseball games here, and the stros are far and away the odd man out when it comes to brodcasting. They have yet to show one this season. So I get blacked out because my "local" station is suppose to pick it up, but rarely do.

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...
written by StevenP, April 09, 2011

The bigger issue, at least to me, is that MLB needs to take a long hard look at these territories. I live in Western Kentucky (Jackson Purchase area) and we are designated as St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds territory. Why are we Cincinnati territory? There are no Reds fans here. And what's worse, with DirecTV you get the Reds games for free, but if you want to watch the Cardinals games (which I should point out that this area is St. Louis territory. I Don't have a problem with that cla*sification) you have to purchase's DirecTV's Sports Pack at $13/mo just to get FSMW.

I am a Cubs fan, so I subscribe to MLBEI to get the Cubs games. Again, I don't have a problem with that because this is not Chicago territory. But when the Cubs play the Cardinals, or if just wanted to watch a Cardinals game, I'd have to pay $13 extra per month just to get the Cardinals games.

Either remove all of the restrictions for MLBEI, if you're paying $200 a season for MLBEI you should get every game, I don't care where you live or whose territory you are in. Or fix the territories, call Western KY St. Louis and only St. Louis territory so that I'd get FSMW for free and then get the Cubs and Reds with MLBEI.

On a separate note, I'm hearing that friends in West KY on Dish Network can't get FSMW for Cardinal games, they are blacked out. Despite FSMW working on Dish last year.

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I don't get it
written by John V, April 09, 2011

What is the snag in lifting blackouts to people who don't get the games anyway?

This baffles me. Teams sell their rights to channels. OK. So do they sell these rights based on the number of people in the territory? If so, that's silly. Teams would be essentially selling "potential" instead of real viewers.

Take that Vegas example. Does SF get to charge sports channels more for that potential slice in viewers in Nevada even though the channel isn't actually broadcasting there?

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...
written by StevenP, April 10, 2011

Taking a look at this from the money standpoint may be another way to look at this.

MLBEI costs about $200 a season. Where does that $200 go? I know DirecTV gets some of it. But where does the rest go? Me being in a market where St. Louis Cardinals games are blacked out on MLBEI, do the Cardinals get a chunk of my $200? If they do, then all blackout restrictions should be lifted. If all 30 teams get a chunk of my $200 that I'm paying for MLBEI then I should be able to watch every game, no matter whose market I'm in.

The same is true for Las Vegas (which seems to be hit hard by blackout rules) and the guy in OKC.

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what a waste
written by bp, April 12, 2011

MLB TV is a scam, and just shows how greedy MLB is! I tried it and cancelled immediately. All local games are blacked out, so one is paying 20 + dollars for replays. Also the video quality is pretty poor, some games came in scrambled and where unwatchable. This product preys on your hopes and desires, but will let you down. Dont buy it, and they will be forced to one day make something useful. Until then, F these greedy b*****ds.

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Charge a sliding fee
written by BobM, April 23, 2011

I am another unfortunate MLB victim who lives in Vegas. As someone else mentioned we've hit the MLB Blackout JACKPOT with six of the 30 MLB teams blacked out. That's 20% of the entire line-up every day of the year. Factor in the Saturday Fox blackouts and the number climbs further. How about charging proportionally less for the packages? What a preposterous idea! That would be fair to the loyal fan. Hey MLB? Take a look at early attendance numbers. In this economy they are down noticeably. Bad weather? Maybe. Or fans are tired of owners sticking their hand in the fan's pocket for higher ticket and concession prices. I've got an iPad 2 with MLB at Bat 2011. And I've got a couple of streaming devices ready to go. Am I buying? I am not. And I hope I'm not alone in the effort to send MLB a message to try and stop these heavy handed blackouts.

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redsoxguy
written by larrydabronx, July 19, 2011

pregame and post game would be watched if u allow?

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noseless idiots
written by dogaldd, January 18, 2012

I don't know about anybody else, but when I can follow my team thru the season on tv, it makes me much more likely to want to go to a game, even though it really is a major trip for me to get from Oregon to SF. When they pull this kind of crap it only makes me want to tell them to shove it. With their silly blackouts they are just cutting off their noses to spite their faces!

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