The bubble has burst?

[mth123]

For some reason I don't think they like the consumer having choice. I think it's either ignorance or arrogance - This is what we're giving you, take it or leave it

Its because the local TV packages pay a lot of money for exclusivity. MLB could end the blackout and get a few die hard fans to sign-up for MLB TV, but the local TV money would drop way more than the money they would be making. This has nothing to do with fans attending the game. Its all about local TV Markets. I live 100 miles away and am in the blackout area, so I buy cable with the channel that broadcasts the Reds locally which is exactly why those local TV packages pay so much for the broadcast rights. They can charge more for ad time, make more money and in turn pay more money to the Reds in the TV Package. Baseball knows that ending the blackout would seriously devalue its biggest cash cow, which is the local broadcast rights and any revenue made by selling more MLB TV packages woud pale in comparison while the local sport networks having the ratings drop. I don't think the blackout will ever go away unless something else makes that local TV money drop first.

[WildcatFan]

In that case, mth, Sinclair driving the RSNs into the ground oughta be the eventual impetus for MLB to end the blackout rules, right? They're bleeding cable subscribers as it is; jacking up the price of RSNs and passing that cost along to viewers is a death spiral. Problem is, MLB is losing eyeballs, and if they don't act quickly there won't be many potential streaming subscribers left.

[mth123]

In that case, mth, Sinclair driving the RSNs into the ground oughta be the eventual impetus for MLB to end the blackout rules, right? They're bleeding cable subscribers as it is; jacking up the price of RSNs and passing that cost along to viewers is a death spiral. Problem is, MLB is losing eyeballs, and if they don't act quickly there won't be many potential streaming subscribers left.

Maybe eventually. The Reds are locked into the biggest TV deal they've ever had. If those factors show up in the next negotiation and the revenue drops from it, and other teams suffer the same fate, MLB might change its rules, but that's a long way off IMO and it would need to happen to the vast majority of teams not just a a few.

[redsrule2500]

This appears to me to be a problem that will turn even bigger next year when the new contract is negotiated. The TV money is going to start to go down not up. Baseball needs to adapt and make use of streaming. I would gladly pay a fee each year to watch the Reds but apparently being almost 400 miles away isn’t enough to be considered out of the local market. Just stupid.


https://theathletic.com/2309573/2021...shared_article

This will all be used an excuse for more ridiculous rule changes that won't help. Can't wait for baseball, as we know and love it, to completely die in the next few years.

[bm1475]

In that case, mth, Sinclair driving the RSNs into the ground oughta be the eventual impetus for MLB to end the blackout rules, right? They're bleeding cable subscribers as it is; jacking up the price of RSNs and passing that cost along to viewers is a death spiral. Problem is, MLB is losing eyeballs, and if they don't act quickly there won't be many potential streaming subscribers left.

If they double their prices and subscriber counts don't drop by half, they still make more money. This is seemingly the philosophy of all businesses now: if we can make one more dollar today, who cares about potential impacts in a year, five years, ten years, or a generation?

[paulrichjr]

Its because the local TV packages pay a lot of money for exclusivity. MLB could end the blackout and get a few die hard fans to sign-up for MLB TV, but the local TV money would drop way more than the money they would be making. This has nothing to do with fans attending the game. Its all about local TV Markets. I live 100 miles away and am in the blackout area, so I buy cable with the channel that broadcasts the Reds locally which is exactly why those local TV packages pay so much for the broadcast rights. They can charge more for ad time, make more money and in turn pay more money to the Reds in the TV Package. Baseball knows that ending the blackout would seriously devalue its biggest cash cow, which is the local broadcast rights and any revenue made by selling more MLB TV packages woud pale in comparison while the local sport networks having the ratings drop. I don't think the blackout will ever go away unless something else makes that local TV money drop first.

This is very easy to fix and I put the fix in one of my posts. Allow people to pay extra to get their "local" blacked out team by paying for it on the FoxSportsGo app. I would gladly pay extra for the app. To be fair I am lucky in the fact that my son just officially got called back to his team (COVID took him out in June along with literally everyone else in the front office that hadn't been there a long time). He gets At-Bat with no black outs so 2021 I can watch anyone without blackouts. It still ticks me off how baseball does things.

[bm1475]

The NFL Blackout rules are pretty bad too, but MLB is absurd

The NFL's 72-hour sellout rule for blackouts hasn't been in place for several years. If you have Sunday Ticket, the only 1/4 PM games you can't watch on it are the ones on local channels, which you get if you have Sunday Ticket. The main issue with the NFL to me is the DirecTV exclusivity. I'm not putting up a dish outside my place just for 17 Sundays a year, and I think it costs like $350, which is outrageously expensive for what you get, IMO. It is, however, SUPER easy to find streams that work great, or if you're willing to watch that night or the next day you can get GamePass, which also works great and only costs like $100.