Any package you buy does not specify you get every game. They are very clear about what you are getting. And they all specify that each package is subject to blackouts. That is what you agree to when you purchase it. This no blackout utopia you envision is never going to happen. At best they might change the territorial boundaries but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for it to happen.
Report: MLB looking into fixing blackout issue (EI & MLB-TV)
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Baseball Blackouts will end. It’s only a matter of when. It may be sooner than you think too since Rob Manfred has said it’s a “top priority” to end them.
Rob Manfred is a liar.
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Well whatever the case, he’s on the record saying it’s a top priority to end blackouts and it will be sooner than 10 years. It may be this year, it may be 9 years but they will end sometime within the next 9 years and hopefully WAY before 9.
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54,190 Posts
There is no chance that "blackouts" will end as long as the current contracts with the teams are in place.
The benefit of Sinclair and the other RSNs going bankrupt is the teams will be forced to negotiate elsewhere for carriage. Once the existing contracts are gone MLB has the opportunity to buy in market rights to live games. Until then, the rights belong to the teams and the teams are bound to the contracts already in place.
The benefit of Sinclair and the other RSNs going bankrupt is the teams will be forced to negotiate elsewhere for carriage. Once the existing contracts are gone MLB has the opportunity to buy in market rights to live games. Until then, the rights belong to the teams and the teams are bound to the contracts already in place.
My $0.02 on blackouts is that with streaming, they no longer do what they were originally intended to do. Protecting an in-market broadcast by blacking out both the in-market and out-of-market broadcast is flat-out stupid and results in people finding ways around them. And it is very, very easy to beat them with a VPN.
What I could support and would even be willing to pay more for would be a package that simply blacks out the out-of-market broadcast while allowing the in-market broadcast to be shown. An example of that for me would be Mets/Phillies in South Jersey. MLB CI or MLB.tv should be allowed to show the NBCSN Philadephia broadcast while blacking out the SNY/PIX 11 broadcast.
What I could support and would even be willing to pay more for would be a package that simply blacks out the out-of-market broadcast while allowing the in-market broadcast to be shown. An example of that for me would be Mets/Phillies in South Jersey. MLB CI or MLB.tv should be allowed to show the NBCSN Philadephia broadcast while blacking out the SNY/PIX 11 broadcast.
How do you know if Rob Manfred is lying? He opens his mouth.
Why Rob Manfred told his short-sighted lie about MLB teams being bad investments
Manfred and the MLB owners are either very bad at their jobs or are lying
They say they are trying to negotiate. They are not.
www.royalsreview.com
Rob Manfred is lying about Minor League compensation (again) - Marc Normandin is creating baseball coverage, featuring leftism
This article is free for anyone to read, but please consider becoming a Patreon subscriber to allow me to keep writing posts like this one. Sign up to receive articles like this one in your inbox here. Admittedly, I’m not much of a math guy. I can do basic arithmetic, though, and luckily, with...
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MLB lockout: Fact-checking commissioner Rob Manfred's press conference announcing delay of 2022 Opening Day
Not surprisingly, the commissioner was in spin mode on Tuesday
www.cbssports.com
Rob Manfred seemingly got caught lying about his knowledge of the Marlins' fire sale
The commissioner’s assertions in a recent radio interview are being disputed.
www.sbnation.com
All Rob Manfred Can Do Is Lie About This Stuff | Defector
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred held his annual mid-season chat with reporters on Tuesday. Because Manfred is who he is and because baseball is what it is, the soundbites that made headlines were all about what a grim and derelict operation MLB can be. When Manfred wasn’t talking about how nobody...
defector.com
RM simply does not like baseball. He is some white shoe NYC lawyer whose firm happened to get the contract to represent MLB in its (always failing) attempts to get a deal with its so-called union that is fair and balanced, like all other sports leagues have. Had the firm assigned him to represent United Airlines in its dealings with the stewardess' union, he would today be an assistant vice-president at UA for flight attendant labor relations, and not have attended, nor watched, a baseball game since he was 12.
Not only does he not care about "blackouts", my guess is that he really could not explain what the issue is.
The Commissioner should be a retired politician, general/admiral, judge, or such like.
Not only does he not care about "blackouts", my guess is that he really could not explain what the issue is.
The Commissioner should be a retired politician, general/admiral, judge, or such like.
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2,263 Posts
How does that help MLB? Would $60 per sub be enough? I don't know the answers, but if it was that simple, I think they would have done it already.
Sinclair’s Sports Channels Prepare Bankruptcy, Putting Team Payments at Risk
America’s largest owner of local sports channels is heading toward a complex $8.6 billion debt restructuring in bankruptcy court as it stakes its future on a new direct-to-consumer streaming service.
www.bloomberg.com
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The idea would not really help MLB. But it would help the RSN's who are losing customers in droves.
MLB needs to help them stay afloat until at least the end of their current contracts.
$60 was a guess based on my $14 per month RSN charge.
That's $168 dollars per year.
All markets have "in-market" MLB, NBA, and NHL teams.
$60 per year for each sport would cost me $180.
Very rough numbers, but it would at least give customers the choice of a cable/sat package with local RSN's, or MLB.tv with no blackouts.
And the RSN would benefit either way.
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I'm not sure that's enough to keep them afloat (if they are indeed going to shut down...I really don't buy the "we are going bankrupt BS" Remember, the RSNs don't just show baseball. There's a LOT of other sports they show as well...basketball, hockey, college sports, features around all sports, and lots and lots of gambling shows now. So just because they get $60 per sub on MLB.TV might not make any difference. Or it could just be a shakedown by the RSNs to either extract more money from the cable/sat companies or a whole host of things.
There are a lot of issues here.
First, the RSN model is broken. That has been discussed. But the local team, particularly in baseball, remains the highest rated single thing on television every night in most places. Yes, that is "only" X-number. Find me something that does better and we can talk.
- Sinclair, which is a horrible company, 100% anti-consumer, bought out (indirectly) Fox's soon-to-be toxic asset at exactly its peak. What geniuses are running Fox. They get out of the RSN business at exactly the right time; they sell off a vault full of reruns to Disney to fuel its money-bleeding streaming dead end, and they sit back and watch the cash roll in. IF (largest word in the language) someone ever figures out how to make money at streaming, Fox can easily launch its own service, or sell its highly desired material (Fox News, Fox Sports) to someone else, without the years (decades?) of losses.
- MLB made a huge mistake with mlb.tv. Very shortsighted. It simply cannot be easier and cheaper to watch other place's teams at the exclusion of your own. FIRST paying your fair share for local baseball must be a predicate to gaining access to other teams.
- All of the "gambling is going to save us" crowd did not know a thing about it. There are too many gambling shows, no one of them is really significant. And the results are not copyrightable.
- For all the "I don't like my local team, I just watch the _ on mlb.tv" crowd, well, guess what. The costs of production and all of that is fully covered by the local market. They are just selling you the games as gravy. It is a, fairly insignificant, amount of money. Extra. Without the local RSN doing the game in the first place, they won't be any game produced for them to sell to you.
- Local RSN money is upwards of 40% of team revenue. It is THE reason one place is a "small market" or a "large market". Live gate has nothing to do with it. Not really. It is the RSN money. That puts the big teams and the small teams at odds with one another on what to do. It will not be pretty.
First, the RSN model is broken. That has been discussed. But the local team, particularly in baseball, remains the highest rated single thing on television every night in most places. Yes, that is "only" X-number. Find me something that does better and we can talk.
- Sinclair, which is a horrible company, 100% anti-consumer, bought out (indirectly) Fox's soon-to-be toxic asset at exactly its peak. What geniuses are running Fox. They get out of the RSN business at exactly the right time; they sell off a vault full of reruns to Disney to fuel its money-bleeding streaming dead end, and they sit back and watch the cash roll in. IF (largest word in the language) someone ever figures out how to make money at streaming, Fox can easily launch its own service, or sell its highly desired material (Fox News, Fox Sports) to someone else, without the years (decades?) of losses.
- MLB made a huge mistake with mlb.tv. Very shortsighted. It simply cannot be easier and cheaper to watch other place's teams at the exclusion of your own. FIRST paying your fair share for local baseball must be a predicate to gaining access to other teams.
- All of the "gambling is going to save us" crowd did not know a thing about it. There are too many gambling shows, no one of them is really significant. And the results are not copyrightable.
- For all the "I don't like my local team, I just watch the _ on mlb.tv" crowd, well, guess what. The costs of production and all of that is fully covered by the local market. They are just selling you the games as gravy. It is a, fairly insignificant, amount of money. Extra. Without the local RSN doing the game in the first place, they won't be any game produced for them to sell to you.
- Local RSN money is upwards of 40% of team revenue. It is THE reason one place is a "small market" or a "large market". Live gate has nothing to do with it. Not really. It is the RSN money. That puts the big teams and the small teams at odds with one another on what to do. It will not be pretty.
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