Sports Media

[Lucky_Beagle]

I hate playing the Pirates as I am in there black out area.

[Ryles]

WB station snuck it on again. Would rather watch Phils announce team than insomnia-inducing Pittsburgh broadcast,

[andyb]

In general I am OK with blackout rules. MLB should just limit any geographic area to one team (or paired teams in NY, SF/Oakland, Chicago, and DC/Baltimore). So no part of New Jersey should be blacked out for both the NY teams and the Phillies. No part of PA should be blacked out for both the Pirates and Phillies (or Phillies and Yankees/Mets).

[BostonRoss]

A problem with blackout rules is that they fail to consider that people who are traveling to an area don’t have the same options as area residents. When I travel to Philly, the Phillies are blocked from the MLB service I pay for. But if the hotel cable doesn’t have the station carrying the Phillies that day, I have no way to watch, unless I go to a bar for three hours.

[BostonRoss]

In general I am OK with blackout rules. MLB should just limit any geographic area to one team (or paired teams in NY, SF/Oakland, Chicago, and DC/Baltimore). So no part of New Jersey should be blacked out for both the NY teams and the Phillies. No part of PA should be blacked out for both the Pirates and Phillies (or Phillies and Yankees/Mets).

Limiting blackouts to a single team/pair would help some but not all of the people living between markets. If, say, half the people in Hartford are Red Sox fans and half are Mets/Yankees fans, half of them wouldn’t be helped.

[andyb]

You can never make everyone happy. The fact is though that teams have these valuable rights. The real solution is the current system PLUS a way to stream any team's game regardless of where your market is. We are getting closer to that. Not a fan of these $20-$30 a month new regional streaming services. Would just prefer the sport like MLB to offer any type of package and make sure the money for the games goes to the team(s) that hold the local rights.

Here in DC I can't watch the Phillies for the 19 Nats games and any random Orioles games they play. But the other 140 games I get on the MLB package so that is good enough for me. Now I just need Ted Leonsis to buy the Nationals so he can settle their lawsuit with the Orioles so I can actually watch their games too.

[zambonir]

Yeah agreed it is the multi-team regions that stink, particularly if the RSN they are protecting isn't really even available in some of those outlier regions. I think if you live in Hartford and are actually able to purchase the RSNs for both Boston and NY, no problem. If not, there should be a way to figure out (if not MLB.TV than the ability to buy a local streaming package w/o having the cable subscription).

I travel a lot too but I can't really expect MLB to worry about that narrow a niche. I do remember one time I was in LA and the Phillies were playing the Dodgers and I couldn't get the Dodgers' station. But I can't remember the last time I was in a Philly hotel or the Lehigh Valley where I couldn't get NBC Sports Philly or any other channel the game was on. The only exception was a family member with a satellite dish, since that carriage agreeement still never happened, even after the old PRISM loophole finally got overturned.

At this point I'm happy to just find other ways to watch when a roadblock does go up (pirate streams, VPN, changing my location). In your scenario, a family member's cable log-in would get you the ability to stream NBC Sports Philly while in Philly, if you have that option.

Would be nice if MLB.TV had single game purchases like the NBA too.

[andyb]

I know that MLB.TV package with home market rights will be more expensive, but if it were an extra $100 over the regular national package it might draw some interest. I worry that it will be much more than that.

I am curious what the next version of the NFL package will cost. Likely Apple TV or Amazon and assume they might charge as much as $500 for the season unless they are willing to accept losses to get customers (though they still charge at least $300 in that situation).

[BostonRoss]

Bottom line is that MLB is willing to sacrifice fans to increase profit. We on this site are more tech savvy than average, but a lot of fans probably can’t figure out all these options (and baseball fans skew older, of course). If my father were still alive, he would never be able to see a game that wasn’t on cable unless one of us was there to help him.

[Aquapong]

I wish I could find a way to ditch Hulu Plus. Most of what I watch on it is Phillies/Flyers/ and a little news. I cut the cable cord 10 years ago and was an early adopter of streaming.

[schillingfan]

In general I am OK with blackout rules. MLB should just limit any geographic area to one team (or paired teams in NY, SF/Oakland, Chicago, and DC/Baltimore). So no part of New Jersey should be blacked out for both the NY teams and the Phillies. No part of PA should be blacked out for both the Pirates and Phillies (or Phillies and Yankees/Mets).

Yes. It’s pretty unfair for northeastern Pennsylvania as we get blacked out for Phillies, Mets, Yankees and Pirates.

[zambonir]

Of course before the Internet this was neither a problem nor a luxury. Growing up in the Lehigh Valley we could watch Yankees, Mets and Phillies on broadcast stations that were all carried by local cable. Not sure if my parents still get all of those channels (5 & 11 from NY and 29 & 17 from Philly). I'm assuming that was also the case in places like Southern Illinois and Kentucky (Cub/Cards and Reds/Cards respectively).

And then on top of that if you had cable you could see almost every Cubs (WGN) and Braves (TBS) game.

It is understandable to me, however, than in certain markets the cable provider (or cord-cutter) isn't going to make carriage deals with multiple RSNs. But if they don't, the blackou shouldn't exist. It's also understandable why things have moved so slowly tbh. The technology moves far faster than the contract terms. There should be changes and carve-outs coming, but it will probably get worse (or rather, easier but more expensive) in the all-digital future.

[Philsmania]

For the fourth time since the All Star break, the Phillies are on Apple TV tonight. Does someone at Apple like the Phillies or did the Phillies volunteer to be a part of this novel coverage?

[zambonir]

Well, it's not a punishment. If you're one of the better teams you are more likely to get picked up for a national broadcast. Phillies have little say, though I imagine there's a maximum number of local broadcasts you might lose.

And if you are playing on the West Coast on a Friday you're more likely to end up there too.

[andyb]

Apple also has 2 games a week. They did not quite start at the beginning of the year, but that means they have close to 50 games meaning most teams are on at least 3 times in the year. The Phillies were not on the first 10 weeks or so, so being on 4 times especially as they narrow to the better teams late in the season is about what we should expect.

[LoneStarPhan]

Apple TV games still free for all.

[andyb]

Seems more Eagles and Sixers oriented, but the Ringer is adding a Philly local sports podcast starting Thursday.

Introducing ‘The Ringer’s Philly Special’

[andyb]

And in a totally expected move, the NY Times adds advertising to the Athletic. This will annoy lots of the long term subscribers. I get that they had to add it to be profitable and their implementation is not awful. They just sold a bunch of year long subscriptions to people like me on false pretenses.

At the very least they should have given long term subscribers a few free months. I am guessing the financial analytics dictating these decisions advised they would make more money if they did not do that.

Introducing our new advertising experience

[zambonir]

I gotta admit I never thought about the fact that they didn't have any as being particularly important. I didn't view my subscription $ as an alternative to advertising revenue because it made for a better user experience, but rather as an alternative to them having to create content that was reliant on clicks and traffic and views in order to please advertisers (which, granted, would also then be accompanied by a more annoying experience).

For what they charge compared to subscription sites that have always had advertising still doesn't seem that expensive but I did fold my sub into a Times sub (otherwise my renewal would have been up this week I think).

[LegoDoom]

Subscriptions and ads seems like an awful decision when users can easily get around both.

For the record, as we've touched on this before, I am not advocating doing that. I think that the NYT and the Athletic are worth their subscription cost, but I'd be pretty pissed if I had to deal with ads as well.