[Unassisted]

IMO, the writer willfully ignores the most ominous issue, due to wishful thinking. The entrenched presence of those hugely lucrative, long-term deals with RSNs are what is going to prevent MLB.TV from moving beyond blackouts and distributing games to all comers via streaming. The very reason those deals are lucrative is because of the per-subscriber revenue stream from cable and satellite subscribers within the teams' territories. It's money that is baked into what you pay for "basic cable" or the "base package" with your satellite provider. It's money that is paid by everyone from diehard fans to grandmas who only subscribe to cable to watch "The Barefoot Contessa" and hipsters who only got cable for "Mad Men," "Game of Thrones" and "Breaking Bad." That revenue stream won't simply disappear because fans and cord cutters dislike it intensely. There's too much money involved.

Readers will come away from this read thinking that a future free of blackouts is right around the corner when it isn't. It isn't at all. Those 20-year deals with RSNs are like a pair of shackles, anchoring the team to 2 decades of blackouts.