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Chip R
05-02-2007, 04:10 PM
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=jp-blackouts050207&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

WMR
05-02-2007, 04:11 PM
Only Bud Selig could move so slowly on something so fundamentally clear to anyone possessing the smallest iota of business--or common--sense.

:bang:

:rant:

Degenerate39
05-02-2007, 04:21 PM
I was just about to post this. I really hate that we had to change from Charter to Direct TV just for the EI and then were lucky if we get to see 60% of the games they show. That's alot of money to miss those games.

StillFunkyB
05-02-2007, 05:31 PM
Here is my biggest thing...

If I choose to PURCHASE a package that plays all the games, I should be able to WATCH any game I want. Bud needs to put that in his pipe and smoke it.

I want to be able to PURCHASE (in other words use MONEY) to give myself the ability to watch the Devil Rays/Royals matchup if I want. Even if I am accross the street from the stadium.

Unassisted
05-02-2007, 05:42 PM
Only Bud Selig could move so slowly on something so fundamentally clear to anyone possessing the smallest iota of business--or common--sense.

:bang:

:rant:

Bud is not going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. MLB is a $6 Billion dollar a year enterprise and the largest chunk of that $6 billion comes from TV rights fees. The blackout rules are designed to force us to watch the game and more importantly, the commercials on the primary broadcast/cablecast. (MLBEI and MLB.TV are secondary rights holders.) If the TV rights holders won't budge on the blackout rules, their rights fees give them a lot of leverage. Bud's bosses do not want him to do anything to jeopardize those rights fees, so he must move slowly and carefully on this issue.

Sea Ray
05-02-2007, 05:46 PM
I had no idea the blackout rules were so egregious. I could like with a blackout but it needs to be more reasonable, like the NFL. I think their blackout radius is 50 miles.

I guess I'm really fortunate. Living here in Cincinnati, I get all the Extra Innings games plus the Reds on FSN, thus nothing is really blacked out. I'd be ticked if I had 40% of the package I was paying for blacked out. What's a fan to do if they're 500 miles away yet w/i a MLB imposed blackout and no access to the network (FSN, YES, etc)that carries the games?

StillFunky has it right. There ought to be some package that you pay for that'll give you the programming you want.

What's baseball afraid of anyway? Most teams already make almost all of their games available to their local market.

Sea Ray
05-02-2007, 05:48 PM
The blackout rules are designed to force us to watch the game and more importantly, the commercials on the primary broadcast/cablecast. (MLBEI and MLB.TV are secondary rights holders.) If the TV rights holders won't budge on the blackout rules, their rights fees give them a lot of leverage. Bud's bosses do not want him to do anything to jeopardize those rights fees, so he must move slowly and carefully on this issue.

That's what's so puzzling. In many cases these blackout zones go further than the reach of the regional networks. There's no SF Giant network available for the fans mentioned in the article who live in Oregon 500 miles away from SF.

Chip R
05-02-2007, 06:24 PM
I had no idea the blackout rules were so egregious. I could like with a blackout but it needs to be more reasonable, like the NFL. I think their blackout radius is 50 miles.



I agree. If I still lived in Des Moines, I'd be blacked out of games for 5 teams and have to watch Cardinals games. I couldn't watch Twins games or White Sox games or Brewers games because on a lark after work some night I might decide to transport myself to Chicago or Minneapolis or Kansas City to watch that night's game. Or, if the Twins were playing in, say, Seattle, I couldn't watch that game either because it makes sense that I might decide to hop a flight to SEA to see the Twins play that night. It's ridiculous. Why not come up with a distance that you could reasonably expect to travel to for that night's game and black out the game in that area? And if you have to charge more for Extra Innings or MLBTV, so be it. You would think that if people saw that they were able to get more games, they wouldn't mind paying more. I know if I were to get season tickets to a team's games, be it college basketball or football, NBA, MLB, NHL, NFL I would expect to pay more than if I only got tickets for a few games.

Chip R
05-16-2007, 01:26 PM
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2870960

Singin' the 'Baseball Blackout Blues'
By John Helyar
ESPN.com

Updated: May 15, 2007

Major League Baseball's TV blackout rules are so dizzyingly complex as to make a tax attorney weep, and the imposition of blackouts is so maddeningly widespread as to make legions of fans scream.

"The blackout sucks," one fan holds in a recent message-board rant about living in a central Pennsylvania area that is claimed as broadcast territory by four teams. "We're blacked out from all Phils, O's, Nats and Pirates games. My cable co [sic] only carries the Phillies games, so each night I miss potentially up to 3 games. If my beloved Mets are playing the Nats or Pirates -- I'm screwed."

It's a common lament among seamheads, many of whom pay dearly for packages such as Extra Innings ($160 a season) only to find that their baseball smorgasbord includes generous helpings of blackouts.

"I've had this problem for SOOOO long I just stopped caring anymore," writes an Astros-deprived fan in Fort Worth, Texas, who claims to have protested with countless -- and, so far, fruitless -- letters to broadcasters, regulators and MLB officials. "As a business major, I find it fascinating that a business is actively refusing to get its product out."

Every sport has blackout rules and fans who grouse about them. But baseball's problematic practices are more exasperating than the others, partly by the sport's nature. It plays twice as many games as the NBA and the NHL, creating more conflicts between national and regional broadcasters. It's a more complicated system than the one employed by the NFL, which handles TV rights centrally and whose games are primarily on Sundays.

Naturally, MLB took an already-difficult situation and let it deteriorate into chaos in three easy recipe steps: 1. Take an outdated broadcast-territory map; 2. jury-rig a host of arcane preemption rules; and 3. stand by while competing media interests butt heads. Voila! MLB produced a major mess that has a lot of its best customers stewing. Nobody, but nobody, seems to be looking out for them.

Finally, mirabile dictu, MLB is acknowledging the rants and stepping up to the issue, though -- or at least trying to make a start on a fix. At owners meetings in New York later this week, MLB officials will ask teams to review their broadcast territories and, where necessary, revise them.

Baseball's territorial map was drawn for the rabbit-ears era in the 1970s. Its boundaries were set according to the reach of over-the-air broadcast signals, emanating from teams' flagship stations and affiliates. Today, games are mainly carried on regional sports networks (RSNs), which mostly are carried on cable systems. It's a "pay" TV distribution system that doesn't hew to the old territorial patterns of "free" TV.

The result is the perversion of a perfectly fine principle. Territories were created to protect the value of a team's TV rights, guaranteeing that nobody else would broadcast into its market. But when you live in the outer reaches of some clubs' territories, you might as well be in Outer Mongolia. The farther you live from the home team's ballpark, the less likely it is that your cable system will carry the RSN televising most of the team's games.

On a blog for Oakland A's fans last month, Oregon residents complained bitterly about their lot. They're in Oakland's broadcast territory, but their cable systems don't carry Bay Area RSNs. And they're subject to blackouts of A's games -- as well as Giants games -- on Extra Innings and MLBTV.com.

"I [sic] glad MLB is spending so much effort to keep fans from watching their product," writes a Eugene resident. "I wish someone could explain how blocking out someone who lives 8 hours away is beneficial to the sport."

Let it be said that MLB deserves this dripping sarcasm. The blackout problem has grown and festered as the number of MLB national and regional broadcast packages has multiplied. Deal after deal, the parties assert and protect their prerogatives. And as for the fans' interests? Ha! Let them eat Cracker Jack.

At last, it seems, Bud Selig & Co. might be motivated to do something. One, MLB was thoroughly embarrassed on Capitol Hill in March, when its $700 million contract with DirecTV for exclusive rights to Extra Innings was challenged by Sen. John Kerry. MLB's No. 2 exec, Bob DuPuy, was blasted in hearings for making a deal that would force 200,000 cable-system subscribers to switch to satellite if they wanted to keep getting Extra Innings. DuPuy insisted the deal provided "the most benefits to the greatest number of baseball fans." But MLB took a PR hit for being anti-fan with the move, and eventually cut the cable operators in on the deal.

Secondly, MLB is two years away from launching its own MLB Network, to be carried on the same satellite and cable outlets now offering Extra Innings. It'll be a 24/7 proposition along the lines of the NFL Network. To make it work, baseball needs to find equilibrium between national and regional broadcast rights or face even more tangled blackout problems and fan complaints. Extra Innings is a premium service, with about 450,000 subscribers last year. The MLB Network would be on basic satellite and digital cable TV packages, going into 40 million homes right off the bat.

At this week's owners meeting, MLB's central office will push for clubs to reexamine -- and, as necessary, redefine -- their broadcast territories. MLB is mum on the specifics, but Selig's broadcasts execs are expected to take a "use it or lose" approach when they push the reforms. They want to give clubs a year to justify their current broadcast territories, based on where their games are actually available or where they have a reasonable prospect of becoming available. If Oakland has no justification for continuing to stake a claim to Oregon, for example, then it's out of Oregon. The territorial map would be redrawn according to current digital-age realities.

This will require owner approval, however, and it's easy to see a number of owners balking. They bought franchises with the understanding that they came with these territories. The owners also, in some cases, are financially joined at the hip with RSNs. The Red Sox, Yankees and Mets have huge stakes in the hugely valuable NESN, YES and SNY networks, respectively. Changes that help national packages like Extra Innings by easing blackout rules, potentially harm the interests of RSNs.

The RSNs already are unhappy with some arrangements, such as FOX holding exclusive broadcast rights on Saturdays until 7 p.m. That enhances its Game of the Week ratings, but requires that everyone else schedule around FOX.

"Having run an RSN, I see all these broadcast rights of the FOXes and ESPNs eroding the RSNs," says John Claiborne, a former executive with NESN and Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which was created by the Orioles.

So blackout-plagued fans have every right to remain skeptical that anything will change soon. Even if there's a will, there's no quick way to change a system that's more confusing than the balk rule.

You want quirks? You want irks? Try being a Mets fan in central Connecticut. Your cable company doesn't carry SNY, and there's no end of other ways to miss the Amazins'. Because you live in their broadcast territory, Mets games are blacked out on Extra Innings. So are their games on ESPN, since the Worldwide Leader has to skirt the home markets of the opposing teams (except for Sunday nights). Try catching their games against the Braves on TBS, even when they're being played hundreds of miles away in Atlanta: same result, same reason.

Live in an area claimed by multiple teams and you're particularly blackout-prone. Nevada, for example, is in six teams' broadcast territory. The best odds you'll get in Vegas on a nightly basis are on multiple blackouts for Extra Innings subscribers.

Online forums on blackouts are virtual wailing walls. Consider just one thread from one bunch of disgruntled DirecTV customers last week. There was the Twins fan in LaCrosse, Wis., bemoaning unjust blackouts of Minnesota games. There was a Chicagoan opining, "The blackout rules and setup is so freaking messed up and complicated … it makes TAXES look easy." There was a gent from Fort Worth, Texas, offering tips on how to game the system and circumvent blackouts, since it's so obviously fruitless to complain about them.

And another Texan asking the key question: "Can anyone think of a good or service other than MLB, where customers chase a vendor around with $, yet the vendor goes to such great lengths to restrict the distribution of its own product?"

Degenerate39
05-16-2007, 01:38 PM
I don't understand the blackout. Is it just teams close to your area that are blacked out?

Chip R
05-16-2007, 01:48 PM
I don't understand the blackout.

No one does.

Degenerate39
05-16-2007, 01:50 PM
No one does.

Good, I'm not the only one.

Reds Fanatic
05-16-2007, 02:51 PM
The simple thing they should have done years ago is if you are not in a home team's TV market you should get the games. I know I am blacked out on Reds, Indians and Tigers games. The Reds I understand because I get their games on TV anyway. The Indians and Tigers make no sense. I don't get their games on TV but I am blacked out anyway. If you are not in an area to get a game on TV you should never be blacked out. The other thing baseball should do is Fox games not on in your area on Saturday's should be part of the Extra Innings package. Every other major sport does this but for some reason baseball won't.

Red Leader
05-16-2007, 02:55 PM
The simple thing they should have done years ago is if you are not in a home team's TV market you should get the games. I know I am blacked out on Reds, Indians and Tigers games. The Reds I understand because I get their games on TV anyway. The Indians and Tigers make no sense. I don't get their games on TV but I am blacked out anyway. If you are not in an area to get a game on TV you should never be blacked out.

The other thing baseball should do is Fox games not on in your area on Saturday's should be part of the Extra Innings package. Every other major sport does this but for some reason baseball won't.

I seperated your post.

I'm in the same situation you are in the first part. Indians and Tigers games are blacked out for me and I hate it. I'd love to see some Tigers and Indians games, but under the current rule, I can't unless I go to their games. Can't see any of their games on the EI package and if they are on a national game, I can't see that either because it's blacked out, so I get NONE of their games. Wonderful.

On the second part, I'm fine if there is a Saturday afternoon Fox game and a Sunday night ESPN game, that they black out the remainder of the games on EI during those times. I'm fine with that. I can live with it. It's only "two time periods" that I have to live with. I'm not fine with the first part. That needs to be changed.

hebroncougar
05-16-2007, 03:38 PM
The simple thing they should have done years ago is if you are not in a home team's TV market you should get the games. I know I am blacked out on Reds, Indians and Tigers games. The Reds I understand because I get their games on TV anyway. The Indians and Tigers make no sense. I don't get their games on TV but I am blacked out anyway. If you are not in an area to get a game on TV you should never be blacked out. The other thing baseball should do is Fox games not on in your area on Saturday's should be part of the Extra Innings package. Every other major sport does this but for some reason baseball won't.

I agree with you. But the problem is............according to the Reds, Indians, and Tigers, you ARE in their home team market. The league needs to set home team markets, and tell the owners that's how it is going to be.

hebroncougar
05-16-2007, 03:41 PM
For those of you that have never seen the mess of the mlb blackout territorial claims, here it is:

Red Leader
05-16-2007, 03:43 PM
For those of you that have never seen the mess of the mlb blackout territorial claims, here it is:

That can't be right. I live in Dayton, actually a southern suburb of Dayton, and it shows Dayton only to be blacked out for Reds games. I'm blacked out of Indians and Tiger's games just like someone that lives in Toledo, Ann Arbor or any other "pink" area to the north of me.

hebroncougar
05-16-2007, 03:51 PM
That can't be right. I live in Dayton, actually a southern suburb of Dayton, and it shows Dayton only to be blacked out for Reds games. I'm blacked out of Indians and Tiger's games just like someone that lives in Toledo, Ann Arbor or any other "pink" area to the north of me.

I just checked another site and it's showing me the same map as I posted. Where does your cable company originate, and does that matter?:dunno:

Reds Fanatic
05-16-2007, 04:06 PM
Part of the problem is I think the cable companies stretch these areas a little. I know on MLB.TV's site they have a place where you enter your zip and it says what teams you are blacked out on. There it only lists the Reds as a team I should be blacked on but I have had Extra Innings through Time Warner ever since they started offering the package and I have always been blacked out on all 3 teams.

Red Leader
05-16-2007, 04:08 PM
Part of the problem is I think the cable companies stretch these areas a little. I know on MLB.TV's site they have a place where you enter your zip and it says what teams you are blacked out on. There it only lists the Reds as a team I should be blacked on but I have had Extra Innings through Time Warner ever since they started offering the package and I have always been blacked out on all 3 teams.

Same here. And it's crap.

Chip R
05-16-2007, 04:43 PM
See, no one understands this thing.

red-in-la
05-16-2007, 05:03 PM
Speaking of no one understanding.....check this out.

I have had DirectTV for years. Since the Bengals have rejoined the NFL, I bought an HDTV and BOUGHT the HD receiver and extra package from DTV.

A side onte: I have to have DirectTV to get the Sunday Ticket package.....btw, all you guys so upset about the MLB only on DTV, the NFL has been like this for several years.

Anyway....here is the nutty MLB problem I just went through.

A few weeks ago, the Reds were on FSN HD so I thought OK, why not upgrade my MLB EI to the SuperFan package (that they advertise over and over again).

Well, when I did, suddenly my Reds game went OFF.....went OFF. I paid MORE MONEY to be a SuperFane and my Reds was suddenly BLACKED OUT.

I called DTV and had to fight my way through the front line guys to get to a supervisor who told me this.....he was as surprised as I was....apparently, according to him, when MLB signs you up to SuperFan, you can only get the two MLD HD games THEY choose.....all others are blacked.

So, I went from being able to virtually any MLB game to being able only to see the Yankees-Devil Rays or the Cubs-(somebody, I don't remember the team).

So, I had to cancel SuperFan and I can no longer see the Reds in HD even though I have a DTV HD subsrciption and all the right hardware.....even when FSNOH broadcasts in HD.

Way to go MLB!!!!!!!!

toledodan
05-16-2007, 05:08 PM
That can't be right. I live in Dayton, actually a southern suburb of Dayton, and it shows Dayton only to be blacked out for Reds games. I'm blacked out of Indians and Tiger's games just like someone that lives in Toledo, Ann Arbor or any other "pink" area to the north of me.


its not that you're blacked out for the reds but thats the only team you can recieve unless you have extra innings. here in toledo i get all of the reds, indians and tiger games as their considered my home market teams. if any of those 3 are shown by anyone besides fox ohio, STO or fox detroit than they are blacked out. comcast in chicago for example was blacked out for me when they did the reds games and fox ohio didn't.

Red Leader
05-16-2007, 05:13 PM
its not that you're blacked out for the reds but thats the only team you can recieve unless you have extra innings. here in toledo i get all of the reds, indians and tiger games as their considered my home market teams. if any of those 3 are shown by anyone besides fox ohio, STO or fox detroit than they are blacked out. comcast in chicago for example was blacked out for me when they did the reds games and fox ohio didn't.

I only get Reds games on Fox Sports Ohio. Only Reds games. And that's fine. If I want to watch the Reds game and they are on FSOH, I watch.

I don't get Fox Toledo, or Fox Detroit. If the Indians or Tigers games are on, if they are Home or Away, I don't get the games on Fox Sports OR the Extra Innings Package. Indians and Tigers games are ALWAYS blacked out for me. Always. If the Indians are the ESPN Wednesday night game, the game is blacked out and I get ESPN news on 2 channels. It sucks. I like the Indians. Travis Hafner is my favorite player and I never get to see him play. Only highlights.

IslandRed
05-16-2007, 05:25 PM
I have no problem with the fundamental concept of blacking out games from Extra Innings if it's available in your market. The primary problem is that baseball, or technology, or both, isn't sophisticated enough to know if any given game is actually viewable in your market. Thus, they're using a meat cleaver to do an x-acto knife's job.

Red Leader
05-16-2007, 05:29 PM
I have no problem with the fundamental concept of blacking out games from Extra Innings if it's available in your market. The primary problem is that baseball, or technology, or both, isn't sophisticated enough to know if any given game is actually viewable in your market. Thus, they're using a meat cleaver to do an x-acto knife's job.

Bingo.

Chip R
05-16-2007, 06:37 PM
With this new deal they have with the cable and satellite companies, is this a flat rate MLB is making or do they get more money if more people subscribe?