So long as it is priced affordably, an all-30 subscription service for both in-market and out-of-market games is a tantalizing idea. Ideally, the offering would be flexible, with single-game, month-to-month, or yearly options available, for example. But even if fans’ only choice were a longer and therefore more expensive commitment, it’d still be an improvement.
Whether MLB will actually get there is a question no one can answer right now, but there are two major hang-ups.
Legally, MLB is years away from being able to have any shot of making such a service happen. That’s because of the existing contracts teams have with RSNs, and the contracts that RSNs have with distributors. The exclusivity built into those deals is the first major hurdle.
An RSN pays a team for the right to broadcast games. A distributor, like Time Warner Cable or Spectrum, then pays the RSN for the right to distribute the RSN on its service. The business model is predicated on the idea that if you want to watch your team’s games in-market, then you have to sign up for the distributor’s service.
And because distributors pay a lot of money for those rights from the RSN, the RSN has historically been limited in its ability to sell its games direct-to-consumer. (There are exceptions: the Red Sox offer a monthly in-market subscription through NESN, for example, and the Yankees plan to launch one soon through the YES Network.)
But going forward, as those contracts expire, MLB and the teams have the opportunity to loosen the language to allow for streaming options.