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UPDATE #2: Reports now are that Tigers games are being blacked out, and area is larger than just NE Ohio
UPDATE: Reports are now that not only are the Pirates blacked out mid-season due to the Time Warner Cable merger, but so are the Indians in NE Ohio.
The mergers of three Time Warner Cable outlets into a single entity has created an unintended blackout headache mid-season for fans in Ohio trying to catching Pittsburgh Pirates, and Cleveland Indians games, while a TWC Columbus system and its newly added served areas are blacking out the Detriot Tigers According to customers, calls to TWC around game time had a recorded message saying, "Tonight’s Pittsburgh Pirates game on the MLB Extra Innings package has been blacked out. This is not a Time Warner decision, but a decision made by Major League Baseball."
(SEE THE MLB BLACKOUT MAP)
A league executive said that MLB is aware of both situations and have been working on it already, but disputes that it is a league issue saying that Time Warner Cable is the reason for the blackout that should not be. A 3:30pm ET call between TWC and MLB occurred today in an effort to resolve the issue.
“It’s a tough situation brought on by the integration of three TWC headends into one,” said the executive. “This always raises complications and it is not done at our direction but certainly creates problems.
“Why, after they’d been informed/alerted as to the blackout problems such integration would cause, they continued to make the decision anyway and deprive their subscribers of games they’d otherwise been entitled to? Their operational economies of scale clearly don’t consider the impact of blackouts; it’s not MLB greed or policy.”
The league said it hopes to have the issue resolved soon. We hope to update fans as soon as word arises.
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, and is a contributor to Forbes SportsMoney blog.. He is available as a freelance writer. Brown's full bio is here. He looks forward to your comments via email and can be contacted through the Business of Sports Network (select his name in the dropdown provided).
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MLB can solve the problem easily: stop blacking out "local" games where "local" means 100+ miles away with no access to the games on ANY cable packages.
I live in Columbus and have had multiple MLB representatives tell me that my only way to watch Pirates games is to "buy MLB audio." Disgraceful.