Blackouts in the Streaming Age

Today is Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. Every year I celebrate this day by watching as many games on TV as humanly possible while eating my weight in hot dogs. In years past I’d spend the afternoon flipping between WGN, ESPN, Sun Sports, MLB Network, and any other random channel I could find. This year my cable cord has been cut and I entered the future with a MLB.TV Premium subscription.

At least, I thought it was the future.

I signed up yesterday and excitedly set the app up on my AppleTV. While today is Opening Day, there were three games yesterday. Opening Sunday? Yet my dreams of the future of baseball viewing were marred by the blackout restrictions of the past. Of the three games aired yesterday, I could only watch one of them. And it was the Mets. Who cares about the Mets?

One of the games was blacked out because Tampa Bay was playing. Apparently since I live in the state of Florida, every Tampa Bay and Miami game (home or away) is blacked out. This is insane. A second game was blacked out because it was the ESPN Sunday Night Game of the Week and apparently all of those are blacked out, along with the All Star Game and other “select” national games — whatever that might mean.

So I have to ask, why sell a premium subscription streaming service when that premium excludes a portion of the content?

HBO wouldn’t sell HBO NOW subscriptions and then prevent people who live in New York access to episodes of Girls. Nor would Netflix blackout Bloodline residents in the state of Florida. This seems ridiculous to even entertain the thought, yet that’s what MLB — and the other major sports leagues — are doing with their antiquated blackout restrictions.

It’s time for a change.

I grew up a fan of the Atlanta Braves. I had cousins that lived outside Atlanta so there was proximity and nearly every game was available on TBS. It was easy to be a fan. Until it wasn’t. TBS gave up on the Braves years ago and as access to games fell away so did my interest in being a fan of the team. Their complete inability to play baseball in recent years didn’t help.

So I changed my allegiance to Tampa Bay. They’re also only an hour away, so proximity was checked. Practically every game was on Sun Sports, the local carrier, so access was pretty easy. Again, until I cut the cable and it became difficult. No, impossible since MLB.TV doesn’t allow me to watch them at all anymore.

So I need a new team to be a fan of.

Apparently proximity doesn’t matter in the streaming blackout era and access to games is super easy — unless it’s Tampa Bay, Miami, anyone they’re playing, or a game on ESPN. So I am taking applications for fandom.

Could it be Chicago? They’re a pretty good team that I’ve always liked. They have Tampa Bay’s former manager so that counts for something. Right?

Maybe it’ll be Seattle. They’ve got a fun team in a cool city. But those West Coast games are always so late.

I guess it could be Atlanta again. I mean, I’ll be able to watch their games again. But did I mention that team is terrible?

Maybe Pittsburg? I feel like they’re a team that no one really likes but fights for anyway. That could be interesting.

I open it up to you, dear reader, to suggest the new team of my fandom. The only restriction are teams from New York. They are only to be loathed and never cheered.

Or, maybe, just maybe, Major League Baseball could actually move MLB.TV into the future and remove the blackout restrictions and let me watch Tampa Bay’s games.