-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512
"Watching Baseball in 2023"
by Colin Cogle
Written April 13, 2023.
ABSTRACT
The Internet lets you stream anything you want directly to your
favorite screen, unless what you want is to watch a baseball game.
- - -------------------------------------------------------------------- -
|===| Colin Cogle
|===| @
[email protected]
The #MLB streaming/TV schedule is getting more convoluted than ever,
but I fear how bad watching a baseball game will be in a few years.
- "You gonna watch the Yankees game tonight?"
- "Yeah, I'm downloading Microsoft Word right now."
- "No, that's next week. Tonight's game is streaming at FDA.gov."
Mar 23, 2023, 11:04 PM EDT - Mastodon for iOS - 3 boosts - 1 favorite
- - -------------------------------------------------------------------- -
The toot that started it all.
(
https://mastodon.social/@colincogle/110076038054873318/)
FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME
When I was a kid, watching a baseball game was simple. If you can't
make it to the ballpark, you turn on the TV to one of your local chan-
nels. Back then, WPIX had almost every New York Yankees game. I can
still hear Phil "Scooter" Rizzuto's voice in my head to this day.
One day, things got a little more complicated. I wanted to watch the
game, but my father said that it wasn't on. It was on some other network
called MSG that we didn't get with basic cable. Two networks? That was
manageable. Most games were still on channel 11. Life goes on.
That brings our story to the autumn of 1995, and this young Yankees fan
was more excited than Don Mattingly to finally get a taste of postseason
baseball. And what a year it was! Not only did "Donnie Baseball" and
I discover what playoffs were, but there were more of them this year! On
the other hand, I certainly needed help finding the right channel. This
wasn't on MSG, nor PIX. I don't remember if it was on Fox or ESPN, but
I'm glad that John Smoltz was too busy pitching to provide annoying com-
mentary. Sadly, our season ended at the Kingdone, just like Mattingly's
long career.
I don't need to tell anyone what happened in 1996, or in 1998, 1999, and
2000. The games were on one of two channels, and if I was somehow away
from my screen, the dulcet sounds of John Sterling and Michael Kay were
never too far away during those magnificent years. Baseball was great,
the plays were intense, and the steroids only made it all that more
grandiose.
2001 still hurts, but imagine my surprise when¸ that next spring, the
YES (Yankees Entertainment and Sports) Network launched. Finally, almost
every game was all in one place, and growing up in Connecticut, that was
added to basic cable. Of course, 'PIX got a few games, but MSG was fi-
nally out of the picture. At long last, all 162 regular-season games
were ready to watch.
"Holy cow!" indeed, Scooter.
I've never paid for cable TV. My college had it, but after I graduated,
I didn't even bother. One apartment had a TV antenna that got a fuzzy
WPIX signal, until the digital switchover killed that for good. I would
watch here and there, but John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman were always a
fixture whenever I had an open ear. I didn't pay much attention to the
TV world. YES was there, and nothing bad was going to happen.
And then, they put on the shift.
CONTENT, À LA CARTE
Here we are in 2023, and the subscription era is in full swing. Cable TV
was insanely expensive, and I'm not alone in that sentiment. It wasn't
long before Netflix rose to prominence, and the entertainment wars star-
ted fresh. However, unlike Betamax and HD-DVD, this was no physical
media; these were bits pushed out over the Internet. There would be no
losers, no service thrown to the wayside, and everyone's apps coexisting
peacefully, side-by-side. Every service would get their few dollars a
month, whether or not there were eyeballs watching.
Unfortunately, this model eventually spiraled down. The big players like
Netflix and Hulu have seen growth slow down, and they're forced to in-
vest in creating content instead of simply delivering it, in hopes that
they'll stand out, and convince some people who're sick of being nickel-
and-dimed to say goodbye to one of their competitors. Big-budget movies
and sophomoric animated content are two ways to do it, but they're star-
ting to wisen up, and looking for markets that have been underserved.
For us Yankees fans, YES still shows most of the games. My poor father
will get to watch most of the season, but more and more broadcasts are
simply disappearing for him. Amazon Prime will take some, Apple TV+ will
exclusively air some, and now Peacock wants to strut around?
It's not that I /can't/ keep track anymore. It's that they made me stop
caring. Strike one.
Why? Each of these services will cost you five to ten dollars per month.
If you want to watch all 162 games this season, you're looking at eight
months' worth of streaming services. Quick and fuzzy math says it will
be $240 for those three services -- and, don't forget, this is on top of
your regular cable bill! It's enough to make a trip to Yankee Stadium
look cheap.
But let's say that you've got enough disposable income to blow on any
streaming service you want. Now you face the task of trying to set it
all up. In a Bloomberg article about this same topic, one baseball fan's
son was tasked with setting up his father to watch all the games. "'He
finds it all very confusing and bewildering,' John, 36, said later in an
interview. 'It makes me wonder what older fans are doing if they don't
have younger children who know this stuff'" (Smith).
My father is in his late sixties, and he never cared to operate anything
more complicated than a lamp. Needless to say, he missed out on a lot
of games last year, because they were exclusive to an app he can't down-
load, on a platform he doesn't use, for a sort of device that he would-
n't care to use if I set it up and left it next to his bed.
Millennials are currently the largest generation alive in the United
States. While we're pushing forty, the average baseball fan is nearly
sixty years old (Schultz). We're the most technologically-savvy genera-
tion, and my father wouldn't own a cell phone if he didn't have to.
(Don't get me started on landlines.) While I can't blame any capitalist
for cajoling the lion's share of the market in hopes to hook the next
generation of baseball fans, it seems like they're giving the middle
finger to their aging base.
Older fans don't have the technical know-how. Middle-aged fans don't
have the time. Younger fans don't have the money for all these apps and
services. Who exactly is Major League Baseball catering to these days?
Swing and a miss for strike two.
DON'T HATE THE PLAYERS, HATE THE GAME
But that's fine, right? Let the free market suffer. You can go straight
to the source and sign up for MLB.TV, right? Live baseball games on any
device. Heck, T-Mobile hands it out for free almost every year. Whip out
your phone, tablet, computer, my dad's smart TV (which I could probably
pre-configure for him), and stream any game you want. Right?
Called strike three! The fans go down looking.
The MLB.TV sign-up page advertises that you can "[s]tream EVERY out-of-
market MLB game LIVE or on demand." More than half of the fine print
explains how you can't stream some live games.
Back in the 1970s, MLB, over-the-air regional sports networks, and the
new national broadcast networks agreed on some arcane blackout rules
(Zeglinski), a policy that survived the rise and fall of cable televis-
ion and well into the Internet age (MLB Advanced Media, L.P.). That
means that you cannot watch your local team without an actual television
network agreeing to give it to you.
That means you can't watch the Yankees (or Mets) in New York, Connecti-
cut, northern New Jersey, or northeastern Pennsylvania. If you live in
New England and want to root for the Boston Red Sox, tough. If you're a
San Francisco Giants fan living in Guam, you're out of luck (for some
reason). No one has it worse than Canadians, who can't watch their na-
tion's /only/ team, the Toronto Blue Jays, no matter /which/ ocean they
are nearer to -- unless it's the Indian Ocean, in which case, I hope you
have a good cell signal (Braindrain0000)!
An Astros fan from Fort Worth, Texas summed it up best in a 2007 online
posting: "As a business major, I find it fascinating that a business is
actively refusing to get its product out" (Helyar).
This is the part of the article where I'd give you some hope. Frequent
arbiter of silly decisions and current MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has
/hinted/ that the blackout era /may/ come to an end... soon (Miller)?
Until then, fans won't be able to root, root, root for the home team;
since they can't watch, it's a shame.
As for me, when the radio just won't do, I'm going back to the easiest
and most reliable way to watch the games short of going to the ballpark
or putting up a TV antenna. I'll be using a method that has crystal-
clear video, great audio, and my choice of the home or away feeds. It's
a method that removes most advertising, all commercials, and gives MLB
exactly zero revenue: piracy.
"Holy cow" indeed, Scooter.
***
WORKS CONSULTED
Braindrain0000. "File:MLB Blackout Areas.svg". Wikimedia Commons, 10
Jul 2007, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:MLB_Blackout_
Areas.svg&oldid=677563339. Accessed 12 Apr 2023.
Cogle, Colin [@
[email protected]]. The #MLB streaming/TV
schedule is getting more convoluted than ever, but I fear how bad
watching a baseball game will be in a few years. "You gonna watch
the Yankees game tonight?" "Yeah, I'm downloading Microsoft Word
right now." "No, that's next week. Tonight's game is streaming at
FDA.gov." Mastodon., 23 Mar 2023, 11:04 PM EDT, mastodon.social/
@colincogle/110076038054873318/
Helyar, John. "Singin' the 'Baseball Blackout Blues'". ESPN, 15 May
2007, www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=2870960. Accessed 13 Apr 2023.
Miller, Phil. "Commissioner Rob Manfred hints at possible end to MLB
streaming blackouts in wake of Diamond Sports bankruptcy". Star
Tribune [Minneapolis], 19 February 2023, www.startribune.com/
mlb-commissioner-blackouts-diamond-sports-bankruptcy-bally-sports-
north-rob-manfred/600252772/. Accessed 13 Apr 2023.
MLB Advanced Media, L.P. "MLB.TV Blackout Policy". MLB.TV Help Center,
2023, www.mlb.com/live-stream-games/help-center/blackout-policy.
Accessed 13 Apr 2023.
MLB Advanced Media, L.P. "MLB.TV Out-Of-Market Packages". MLB.TV, 2023,
mlb.com/live-stream-games/subscribe. Accessed 13 Apr 2023.
Schultz, E. J. "How Major League Baseball Is Trying to Draw More Young
Fans". AdAge, 9 April 2021, adage.com/article/podcast-marketers-
brief/how-major-league-baseball-trying-draw-more-young-fans/2327386.
Accessed 24 March 2023.
Smith, Gerry. "Baseball’s Streaming Push Leaves Fans Scrambling to Find
Games." Bloomberg, 14 May 2022, bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05
14/mlb-frustrates-fans-as-baseball-moves-to-amazon-apple-streaming.
Accessed 24 Mar 2023.
Zeglinski, Robert. "Here are the MLB.TV blackout rules that will likely
frustrate fans throughout the 2023 season". USA Today Sports, 30
Mar 2023, ftw.usatoday.com/lists/mlb-tv-blackout-rules-explained.
Accessed 13 Apr 2023.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
iHUEARYKAB0WIQQ7NZ6ap/Bjr/sGU4FSrfh98PoTfwUCZDyunAAKCRBSrfh98PoT
f4oqAQD6mueV5Tv+U+8Qnsz2FmVt4eKyzS4BXZsw5O5S/UBQeQD/f2MmW7OGUlD+
wnaV0QWCw4suwyhh+tO3RD9UpFfzjAc=
=5p7H
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
