MLB Tv is back! And still not worth it for a lot of people!

Well, Spring is upon us.  That mean’s baseball is here!  MLBTV is also upon us.  For someone that doesn’t have cable and wants to be able to watch whatever team I please, MLB TV still does not live up to the hype that all other sports networks have for providing content to people who want content provided to them.  What you may not know about MLB TV is that they subject their customers to blackout rules. 

Now under the NFL blackout rules, you can watch the team you want so long as the game you are watching is sold out.  That’s pretty much the only blackout rule that affects customers. 

With the NBA, you get every game whenever you want for about $25 a month and it’s available on your laptop.  Not on a PS3 or an Xbox 360 (yet), but it is available on DROIDS and Blackberry’s and iPhones.  The only blackout rules are the ones where the game is being televised on ABC, ESPN, TNT, or NBA TV.  That usually means it’s a huge game that you can catch at your local bar.  Doesn’t really affect people that much I suppose.

Now, if you type into Google “MLB TV blackout” the next word suggestion is “ps3 workaround” and “mac workaround”.  That’s a bit of a concern for the MLB or at least it should be.  The MLB blackout rules that are on this site are that local broadcast stations and cable stations have contracts with teams to over National Broadcasters.  So, if a game is broadcasted on ESPN and another local station has broadcasting rights to that same game, ESPN is blacked out.  Stupid

The second rule of the blackout rules is quite a hard thing to think about.  It involves FOX, ESPN, TBS, and the times for which games on Saturdays are available for watching.  FOX gets the games on Saturday’s between the hours of 3:55 and 7:00 PM.  ESPN gets the games after 8:00 PM.  The Marlins and Rangers are exempt from this.  I read the rule and still don’t know why.  TBS doesn’t hold the exclusive rights to their Sunday afternoon game of the week. 

The third rule is that flagship radio stations are not allowed to include MLB games in their live Internet streaming.  I don’t understand this at all.  Why would streaming the radio feed live over the internet make any difference in how a fan gets their content?

Now, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with MLB owners and such.  But I think if Baseball is “America’s Pastime” then I think it’s time that we, as a nation, start to rally and get our baseball when we want it and where we want it.

I feel bad for people in Las Vegas and Iowa.  People in Las Vegas cannot watch the Angels, Athletics, Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Giants, or Padres.  People in Iowa cannot get games for the Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Royals, Twins, or White Sox.  A Red Sox fan who doesn’t have cable cannot watch the Red Sox because they are contracted by NESN.  Same with the Yankees and YES Network.  FanGraphs was ranting about this and went into much more detail with the frustration of a product that doesn’t seem like it would be that complicated at all to configure.  I don’t get this.  There has to be something changed!