Major League Baseball blackout policy
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Major League Baseball has rules for exclusive broadcasting, called 'blackout' rules, which bar certain areas from watching livegames.[1]
Most blackouts are for two reasons: The first is local cable providers' desire for exclusive broadcasting. The second, MLB's desire to drive stadium attendance.[2] Select regular season games, special events, and postseason games will also be subject to exclusivity deals with, for example, networks like Fox owning the rights to afternoon MLB games on Saturdays and ESPN the same rights for night games on Sundays.
United States
Almost every part of the Contiguous United States has at least one team blacked out from watching, with some having more. As the map shows, every team has its local area (AKA home market) blackout. Beyond that, some teams have several surrounding states that are also blacked out. For example, the Kansas City Royals are blacked out from view in the state of Missouri (except in the St. Louis metro area), Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Iowa.[3]
The worst state blackout-wise is Iowa, which is blacked out by six teams:
Due to the fact that they play in Canada, the Toronto Blue Jays do not have any part of their blackout territory in the United States. However, some MLB teams have blackouts that extend into Canada.
ESPN Deal
A new contract between ESPN and Major League Baseball in 2012 virtually eliminated local blackouts involving the network's Monday and Wednesday night games, allowing ESPN coverage to co-exist with that of the local broadcasters in home markets.[5] The agreement took effect at the start of the 2014 season and lasted until 2021.[6]
A contract extension between ESPN/MLB was struck in 2021, lasting until 2028.[7]
Apple TV Deal
In March 2022 MLB and Apple signed a streaming deal worth $85 million annually. Through this streaming deal, Apple will broadcast a doubleheader every Friday, during the regular season on their streaming platform Apple TV+.[8]
Bally Sports bankruptcy
Due to the parent company of the Bally Regional Sports network, Diamond Sports Group, applying for bankruptcy, there have been calls to end the blackout rule so that local fans can no longer rely on only cable providers to watch their teams games.[9]
Canada
The
Consumer devices
Consumer devices that enable television subscribers to transmit their home television feed outside their host area to a remote location over the
In 2009, MLB launched MLB Network on basic cable similar to the NFL Network. As part of the new network, MLB has told owners to reduce their blackouts due to outrage amongst fans and letters pouring into MLB's offices. In particular, MLB is looking to address the availability of regional sports networks outside teams' immediate home markets. Ostensibly, if teams/channels are not available in certain locations, teams could lose their claims to such areas and coverage would be replaced by the MLB-controlled Extra Innings service.[citation needed]
Radio blackouts
In MLB, there are radio blackouts.
Additionally, radio stations (including flagships) are not allowed to broadcast any MLB games in the live Internet streams of their station programming outside of the flagship station's DMA (example: WDAE, which is the Rays Radio Network flagship, is only allowed to stream its coverage within Pasco, Pinellas, and Hillsborough counties) or on out-of-market radio affiliates that carry the station's main signal. (MLB makes its own streams of the team networks available for a fee.) Some stations will replace the game with a recorded message explaining why the game cannot be heard on their stream. Others will simply stream the station's regularly scheduled programming that is being preempted by the game. Additionally, ESPN Radio also restricts online streaming of their coverage of regular season games to listeners located both within the United States and outside the markets of the teams involved in the games, regardless of the application used.
During the 2021 Postseason, the Atlanta Braves streamed its coverage of their entire postseason run completely free of geo-blocking restrictions, including their NLDS, NLCS, and World Series appearances.
See also
References
- ^ https://www.mlb.com/live-stream-games/help-center/blackout-policy
- ^ https://www.sportingnews.com/us/mlb/news/mlb-blackout-restrictions-map-2023-baseball-games/m843wsljyvrrdmf50zjhusre
- ^ Zimmerman, Jeff (July 26, 2012). "Blackout Rules and the Royals". Royals Review. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
- ^ Diamond, Jared. "Baseball Isn't Heaven in 'Field of Dreams' Town. It's Blacked Out". WSJ. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
- ^ "ESPN Signs New Deal With MLB Through '21 Worth An Average Of $700M Annually". Sports Business Daily. August 28, 2012.
- ^ Weisman, Jon (August 28, 2012). "ESPN, MLB to extend deal". Variety. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
- ^ Polacek, Scott. "MLB, ESPN Announce New Broadcasting Contract Through 2028". Bleacher Report. Retrieved May 2, 2023.
- ^ Halicke, Chris (March 9, 2022). "MLB, Apple Announce Streaming Deal For Exclusive Friday Night Games". Si.com.
- ^ Stephanie, Apstein (February 1, 2023). "MLB Indicates It Could Produce Local TV Broadcasts and End Blackouts for Some Teams". Si.com.
- ^ "Sirius XM: Major League Baseball and SiriusXM Expand Agreement; Games Now Available to SiriusXM's Streaming-Only Subscribers" (Press release). SiriusXM. April 12, 2021. Retrieved April 13, 2021.
- "Singin' the 'Baseball Blackout Blues'", ESPN.com, May 15, 2007