Social Feed

Here goes. Every team has a territory this is considered its market. These are self-claimed, teams just claimed whatever areas they wanted. This has led to two problems. First is "quilting" as teams just overlapped each other with claims. Parts of Iowa and Nevada are claimed by SIX TEAMS. Second is illogic. Teams just claimed too much. The Pirates claim Columbus, Ohio. The Reds claim northern Mississippi. Many such idiocies. The Wikipedia article "Major League Baseball blackout policy" has the current maps.

Now here is the deal. It is unfair and dumb, but not hard to understand.

The claimed area is IN MARKET. The rights to the home team's games belong to the team. Thus:

For regular TV subscribers (cable or dish):

Local team(s) on the local RSN (Fox Sports wherever, AT&T Sport Net wherever, YES, NESN, etc).
All other teams on MLBEI.

For regular TV subscribers (cable or dish) who also stream:

Local team(s) on the local RSN's app with a password to prove you are a regular TV subscriber.
All others on MLB.TV

"Cord Cutters"

All others on MLB.TV
(Previously) Local team not available.
(Now) Local team available on an app set up by the local team for a separate fee)

ALL this story is about is those last two sentences. Cord cutters can pay their local team for the local teams game IN MARKET. It has nothing to do with access to Yankee games (substitute whatever team as this rolls out across the nation) out of market. Nothing.

SamCdbs said:

Local team(s) on the local RSN (Fox Sports wherever, AT&T Sport Net wherever, YES, NESN, etc).

Click to expand...

Unless you happen to be lucky enough to have at least two teams in your "market" and DirecTV only gives you one of those teams unless you buy the absurd Sports Pack for $13/mo just for the privilege to watch the team that is in your "market"

MLB really should clamp down on this market territory issue. Like you say, Reds territory in northern Mississippi is absurd. MLB should make the Reds go to northern Mississippi and find 5 Reds fans to prove that it's Red's "territory"

evenout said:

Unless you happen to be lucky enough to have at least two teams in your "market" and DirecTV only gives you one of those teams unless you buy the absurd Sports Pack for $13/mo just for the privilege to watch the team that is in your "market"

MLB really should clamp down on this market territory issue. Like you say, Reds territory in northern Mississippi is absurd. MLB should make the Reds go to northern Mississippi and find 5 Reds fans to prove that it's Red's "territory"

Click to expand...

Completely agree. I live in Charlotte. My "local" teams are the Braves, Nationals, Orioles, and Reds. I have MLB.tv and we are fans of both Chicago teams. SInce MASN doesn't stream and we miss those games vs the Orioles and Nationals. FSN Ohio isn't here, so 18 Cubs games missed. Games vs Braves that we have to watch the Braves feed. We need a system that allows us to watch our teams feeds for all games.

Sparkman said:

Completely agree. I live in Charlotte. My "local" teams are the Braves, Nationals, Orioles, and Reds. I have MLB.tv and we are fans of both Chicago teams. SInce MASN doesn't stream and we miss those games vs the Orioles and Nationals. FSN Ohio isn't here, so 18 Cubs games missed. Games vs Braves that we have to watch the Braves feed. We need a system that allows us to watch our teams feeds for all games.

Click to expand...

The Reds are an in-market team in Charlotte North Carolina? WTF?!

The bottom line when/if this happens is Cost ...
At what price is this going to be at ?

OK, you want to watch your local teams, without a cable/ dish package ...
It could start at say $125 ....
Not TOOO bad .... not great, but not too bad if your really interested ...
Of course, you could buy EVERY team for what $185 thru MLB EI on D*.

Actually wasn't the At Bat deal like $100 for the year ?
Is that all teams (I've never used it) ...

People, don't think that your going to get your team games for like $50 for the year, it ain't gonna happen.

When it starts, it will be some price that many will like and try it out ... then if it is liked and people start using it, it will increase substantially the next year and every year after to a point where we are all trying to find a cheaper option AGAIN.

Would you pay $ 20 a year for just your local team...of course with targeted commercials

Jimbo said:

The bottom line when/if this happens is Cost ...
At what price is this going to be at ?

OK, you want to watch your local teams, without a cable/ dish package ...
It could start at say $125 ....
Not TOOO bad .... not great, but not too bad if your really interested ...
Of course, you could buy EVERY team for what $185 thru MLB EI on D*.

Actually wasn't the At Bat deal like $100 for the year ?
Is that all teams (I've never used it) ...

People, don't think that your going to get your team games for like $50 for the year, it ain't gonna happen.

When it starts, it will be some price that many will like and try it out ... then if it is liked and people start using it, it will increase substantially the next year and every year after to a point where we are all trying to find a cheaper option AGAIN.

Click to expand...

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

comfortably_numb said:

The Reds are an in-market team in Charlotte North Carolina? WTF?!

Click to expand...

Yep.

The Reds claimed territory is Ohio, except for the Cleveland DMA; Indiana, except for the immediate Chicago suburbs; Kentucky; Tennessee; the part of Mississippi that is in the Memphis DMA; the Charleston, Huntington, and Parkersburg areas of West Virginia, and the western third of North Carolina.

And I am not picking on the Reds., who are my team Almost every team did this. The claims pre-date even the invention of the DMA. Done for radio purposes back in the Bowie Kuhn era. They just let each team claim what it wanted to, and let things "quilt" or "overlap". IMHO, the Pirates are the worst offenders, but they are all bad.

The problem is that "your" team is blacked out. So you do not get "your" team in MLB.TV or MLBEI, and, many times have to subscribe to the Sports Pack on DirecTV to get all of the RSNs that are "local" to you and often simply cannot get them all on cable.

The worst situation is the entire state of Iowa, claimed by both Chicago teams, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Kansas City, and St. Louis; and Las Vegas, claimed by both Bay Area teams, both LA teams, San Diego, and Arizona. That means that 6/30ths or 20% of the games will NOT be on MLBEI or MLB.TV there, yet they charge the same for it.

And, under this new idea, which involves IN MARKET streaming, an Iowan or Las Vegas-ite would have to buy SIX different streaming packages, plus MLB.TV to get all the games.

Bud "Light" (Kennesaw Molehill) Selig, the worst Commissioner ever, until the current baseball hating Manfred came along, SAID he was going to fix this. Which, as stated above, would be simple. Simple survey the fans, as well as look at things like ticket and regalia sales, sports page coverage, radio affiliates, etc, and CANCEL the claims that make no sense. For example the Indians claim my area. There are ZERO Indians fans here. Simply INFORM the Indians their claim is cancelled. Best interests of Baseball power. But, like with everything, Selig talked, but did nothing about it.

SamCdbs said:

The worst situation is the entire state of Iowa

Click to expand...

What site has the info so I can see my state (Nebraska)?

LQQK said:

What site has the info so I can see my state (Nebraska)?

Click to expand...

Plug in your zip code here: MLB.TV | Offseason

comfortably_numb said:

Plug in your zip code here: MLB.TV | Offseason

Click to expand...

1st, Thank-U.

I checked, gave me Kansas City Royals as the only team, Yet all year I kept getting the restriction for Yankees games. Oh Well!

JS_SMD

SamCdbs said:

Yep.

The Reds claimed territory is Ohio, except for the Cleveland DMA; Indiana, except for the immediate Chicago suburbs; Kentucky; Tennessee; the part of Mississippi that is in the Memphis DMA; the Charleston, Huntington, and Parkersburg areas of West Virginia, and the western third of North Carolina.

And I am not picking on the Reds., who are my team Almost every team did this. The claims pre-date even the invention of the DMA. Done for radio purposes back in the Bowie Kuhn era. They just let each team claim what it wanted to, and let things "quilt" or "overlap". IMHO, the Pirates are the worst offenders, but they are all bad.

The problem is that "your" team is blacked out. So you do not get "your" team in MLB.TV or MLBEI, and, many times have to subscribe to the Sports Pack on DirecTV to get all of the RSNs that are "local" to you and often simply cannot get them all on cable.

The worst situation is the entire state of Iowa, claimed by both Chicago teams, Milwaukee, Minnesota, Kansas City, and St. Louis; and Las Vegas, claimed by both Bay Area teams, both LA teams, San Diego, and Arizona. That means that 6/30ths or 20% of the games will NOT be on MLBEI or MLB.TV there, yet they charge the same for it.

And, under this new idea, which involves IN MARKET streaming, an Iowan or Las Vegas-ite would have to buy SIX different streaming packages, plus MLB.TV to get all the games.

Bud "Light" (Kennesaw Molehill) Selig, the worst Commissioner ever, until the current baseball hating Manfred came along, SAID he was going to fix this. Which, as stated above, would be simple. Simple survey the fans, as well as look at things like ticket and regalia sales, sports page coverage, radio affiliates, etc, and CANCEL the claims that make no sense. For example the Indians claim my area. There are ZERO Indians fans here. Simply INFORM the Indians their claim is cancelled. Best interests of Baseball power. But, like with everything, Selig talked, but did nothing about it.

Click to expand...

Replying because giving this post just a thumbs up doesn't do it enough justice. I agree with everything written in this post.

MLB is so worried about it's decline in viewership and people that care about baseball... they need to take a look in the mirror and see how much this "local team territory" issue is hurting them. Fans can't watch their "local team" without jumping through so many hoops - it's just not worth it for casual fans. Why teams (any team) can claim so much "local territory" is the main cause of this.

Juan said:

Would you pay $ 20 a year for just your local team...of course with targeted commercials

Sent from my SM-G950U using the SatelliteGuys app!

Click to expand...

Of course, you pay more than that now with RSN fees.

That said, I Doubt that it would be anywhere near that cheap ....
If you think about it, they are gonna try to get as much as possible originally and go up from there.

Thats like the NFL Sunday Ticket ...
It started at $79.99 and has gone UP every year since, till they started having to allow people to call in for discounts.

LQQK said:

1st, Thank-U.

I checked, gave me Kansas City Royals as the only team, Yet all year I kept getting the restriction for Yankees games. Oh Well!

JS_SMD

Click to expand...

When I had Dish, I "moved" to Council Bluffs so I could get all the teams Iowa gets- Milwaukee, Chicago, Minnesota, Kansas City and St. Louis. It also came with Omaha locals and 2 or 3 PBS stations. A sort of "sweet spot" if you will.