MLB and their blackout rules...

          I live in Buffalo, NY which means that we have no major league baseball team of our own, yet blackout rules still apply to us. Why is that exactly? Who knows... but I am sure it comes down to dollars and cents in the end.  All of our cable providers in Western New York have channels that carry New York Yankees and Mets games, If you have Directv, you can purchase the sports package that also gives you access to the stations that carry the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cleveland Indians games in our market. Since there is an option to receive service that carries these games in Buffalo, these are considered to be "in market games". In my apartment complex, we are banned from having satellite dishes so I do not have access or the opportunity to receive and watch the Pirates and Indians unless they are playing the Yankees, Mets, or play in a nationally televised game.


          Last night the Cleveland Indians were playing the Detroit Tigers and the MLB network was going to be picking up the feed for this game. I would have liked to watch this game. These are the two teams at the top of the AL Central with the Tigers having a four game lead over the Indians in the division. Do you think I would be able to watch this game since it was being broadcast on MLB Network and I have this channel? NO! Grated the advertisement for the game did say "Subject to local blackout." I did not realize Cleveland was local... It is three hours away and in a totally different state! It is not just the MLB Network, ESPN will black out these teams as well if it is not a national broadcast. In a nutshell, the blackout rules state that if you have access to watch the team in your local broadcast area, that it would be blacked out. The funniest part of this is that the team that is geographically closest to us, the Toronto Blue Jays which are only 90 miles away, would not be blacked out if they were to be broadcast since they are not carried by CBC or CTV which are Canadian stations available locally on Time Warner Cable.

          Listen, when I was married I had Directv, had the added sports package and loved it. I am not about to base where I live on whether I can have a satellite dish or not, especially based only on if I can watch some additional baseball games or not. If it were the Sabres I did not have access to, I would be finding a new location to live. Some of you may be thinking that I should just get the MLB Extra Innings package... Well the blackout rules apply to that as well which sucks because you are paying a lot of money to have access to "out of market games". As far as I am concerned, I live in Buffalo, I do not have a market since I do not have a major league team that resides in Buffalo.
 
          I do enjoy watching the Pirates and Indians games, and yes I know that these are not great teams... well, fuck off, I like to watch them. These are teams that we in Buffalo have only a three hour drive to go see. I almost feel more of a connection to these cities since they are rust belt cities just like Buffalo. When it comes to the Indians, yes I like to follow them. They were once the Buffalo's AAA parent club. It was nice to see the prospects play here, then drive to a game in Cleveland and see them in the big league as their development continued. Besides, when I see an Indians jersey, all I can think of is the movie 'Major League' and Charlie Sheen playing Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn... Classic!

          I grew up as a Red Sox fan, but my attention to them is not what it once was as they have turned to the same philosophies that made me despise the Yankees for all of these years. What if I wanted to get my son interested in either of these teams? It would be much easier to show him the games from Cleveland and Pittsburgh on TV to draw some interest. I could tell him that we can go to these stadiums while we are watching the games. But no, this cannot happen because of the blackouts. Teams like the Yankees and Mets have such high revenues that they own their own television stations so they have the resources to invade my cable lineup standard without additional costs. The Atlanta Braves were broadcast on TBS for many years, and TBS is a national station... How many people do you think became fans of the Braves because they had access to watch them? Would people be open to become fans of the Indians and Pirates if we had access to watch them here in Buffalo... I am not sure, but I am positive some people might hop on board. Even if it is only small amounts of fans, they still could produce revenue to these small market teams where every dollar counts. Maybe this is just another conspiracy by the evil empire to keep small market teams at bay, and why we will never see a salary cap in baseball.

         How about this for a thought... maybe the blackout rules should be modified to include your particular cable provider. If you have Time Warner Cable like I do, I do not have the options to subscribe to the stations that carry Indians and Pirates games so the blackout should not apply to us. But, if you had Directv in the Buffalo area and did not purchase the additional sports package, you would be blacked out because you have access to the stations but choose not subscribe to it. What about lifting the blackouts if you purchase the Extra Innings package or MLB.TV on your computer... Just a few ideas to think about.

Here is another idea, how about cable a-la-carte? I would sign up for that.