Frustrated: MLB Blackout

[kenparker23]

Just to vent. I am a big baseball fan. Have spring break off to hang out with wife and kids (and watch opening day).

Enjoy watching the Braves and wanted to see Heywards first game. Fixed me some lunch and sat down to a nice, relaxing day of baseball.

Turn on the tube today (ESPN) and no game. Game is not on Fox sports or WGN.

We are 4 1/2 hours from Atlanta and six hours from Chicago. However, since WGN had the rights, ESPN was blacked out, and since we are considered in "Atlanta" viewing area, WGN is blacked out.

Bottom line is, no game for me today.

Blackouts suck. Mediacom cable sucks. That is all.

[Easy Mac]

Espn was blacked out for me. MLB.tv was blacked out for me. For some reason the sports south HD is no longer in the channel lineup. I was only able to watch the game in sd.

[EagleFan]

Why was the MLB Blackout frustrated?

[Cuckoo]

Similar story for me actually. I DVRed the Cubs/Braves game and was very much looking forward to watching it when I got home. When I got home, about two hours into the game, it was not recording. Apparently, the Directv receiver turned off the recording because it was blacked out. Then, I turn to ESPN, and the game is on.

The Cubs were getting killed, of course, but I don't understand what happened. Quite a letdown in a couple of ways.

[molson]

They have to get this shit sorted out.

[sooner333]

Somehow we're going to get something like 130 Rangers games, 130 Cardinals games, 70 Astros, and 50 Royals games this year between FSN and FSN+ here. Crazy, but we're blacked out for all of the games we can't see (such as the game I want to watch tomorrow, Astros-Giants).

[dervack]

Not a blackout issue, but an issue that made me mad here in Chicago. It wasn't on WGN, at all, but WCIU, which has always had terrible signal strength until the digital switchover. Wanted to watch the game in HD, but oh wait, neither dish network or directv carry WCIU in HD, just SD. WTF?

[Sun Tzu]

You guys aint got shit on me when it comes to blackouts. Hawai'i is 20 years behind the times, and "Oceanic" Time Warner's communication is apparently completely cut off from the mainland. If you want to see a Giants/A's game out here, you have to fly 2,500 miles. No joke, 100% of the games are blacked out...even the nationally broadcast ones.

Weak.

To make things funnier, I found out when I moved here that if you want DirecTV, you have to have a place to mount an old style dish. I'm talking those big 5 foot wide ones...seriously...I'm not even joking.

[rowech]

The NFL blackout rules have always made sense. Baseball's just seem silly.

[Coder]

I don't quite understand the blackout rules.. i thought they were intended to put people in the seats at the stadiums, i.e. earn the teams more money..

However, if you purchase a service, i.e. MLB.tv, for the specific purpose of watching baseball, the teams get money anyway.. yet they black out games that you've paid for!?

As a non-US resident, I don't get many blackouts, but the blackouts I get are the games that are on "National TV" (i.e. ESPN). Why? I don't have ESPN and I can't go to the games (unless I hop on a flight and travel 3000 miles).

Out of curiousity, if one were to live in the Atlanta metro area, would it be impossible to watch Braves-games on TV? Would they all be blacked out?

[Easy Mac]

Originally Posted by Coder

Out of curiousity, if one were to live in the Atlanta metro area, would it be impossible to watch Braves-games on TV? Would they all be blacked out?

No, all Braves games are on TV. They have like 3 different channels that rotate games. It just happens that being on ESPN screws everything up. If its national, then the national is blacked out and no one else shows it.

[sooner333]

Originally Posted by Coder

I don't quite understand the blackout rules.. i thought they were intended to put people in the seats at the stadiums, i.e. earn the teams more money..

The blackout is not to get more people in the seats, it is to protect the local-television-rights owners. Because they are paying the teams for the right to broadcast the games, they should not be subject to having their audience watch on the internet or cable package because they will not get the ratings, or so the reasoning goes. The problem is that in some cases, the games are not being broadcast in their home areas, such as Hawaii, or the 100+ Royals games here (not like I care about KC, but someone may (but probably not because so many games are not on the air)).

The NBA was smart about it. Back before OKC got the Thunder, the Mavs games were broadcast on Fox Sports Southwest. However, not all of the games would be broadcast on the network as sometimes there was a national college football game that would get precedence in OKC over the Mavs. The NBA League Pass would blackout all games within the 50 mile radius of the team (which would always get the local game), but would only blackout on the cable package if the game was actually being broadcast in that area. So if FSSW was blacked outdue to another event or the game being broadcast over-the-air in Dallas, you could watch on League Pass, and if it was being shown on FSSW, League Pass was blacked out instead. Much better system.