MLB.tv blocks out local market games. So it really defeats the purpose.
Well, I'm not necessarily directly comparing mlb.tv/extra innings to RSN feeds.
I'm just saying nobody buys mlb.tv or Extra Innings and never watches it.
A lot of people buy (in the sense that it's including in their package) their RSN (and ESPN and FS1 and whatever) and never watch it.
So you can't take the subscriber numbers of mlb.tv and Extra Innings and the subscriber numbers of RSNs and ESPN to mean the same thing. And yes... the "area" that these would fit in are different so you can't necessarily call it an apples to apples comparison.
Now it's hard for teams to really gather exact numbers, because an mlb.tv subscriber is subscribing to watch what team?
BUT... you can look at it from the perspective of MLB.
1000 mlb.tv subscribers means there's at least 1000 MLB fans. Period, end of sentence.
1000 subscribers to Fox Sports North... that doesn't mean that there are 1000 MLB fans, or even 1000 sports fans.
You know those 1000 mlb.tv fans are baseball fans. You're guessing at the 1000 subscribers to Fox Sports North given it's distribution path.