Article: MLB's Territorial TV Rights Challenged

[Paul]

If you wouldn't blame a duck for quacking, then you really shouldn't blame an MBA for trying to increase their revenue stream every way available to them. There's nothing nefarious going on. The anti-trust exemption awarded to MLB in the 20's was the result of the brethren being convinced of two things: ML baseball was somehow essential to the well being of the US and, ML baseball could not survive without the exemption. From my perspective, the validity of both things today could be successfully argued against. In any event, it won't change until our busy legislators are alerted by a focus group.

 

Wait, did I just say that last part out loud?

[kab21]

The problem is that cable companies are a dying business model. They are willing to spend silly money for exclusive broadcast rights because that is one of the big reasons that people are going to subscribe to cable TV. They will do everything they can to make it inconvenient to watch your home (or regional) team on anything but their service.

 

Despite these mega contracts things are going to be considerably different in the next decade.

 

IIRC South Korea and Japan used to blackout mlb.tv because their pro leagues were 'concerned' about losing fans to the MLB. Of course MLB games are played at breakfast while the pro leagues played in the evening. This changed 4-5 years I think but it never affected me since I live in Taiwan.

[Jack Torse]

Nice article and I'm glad the law geeks are fighting this but they are going up against a gorilla. I hope they are successful as cable and satellite basically have a legal monopoly thanks to Congress. I would have no use for cable or satellite if they succeed.

[Shane Wahl]

Does anyone have that map showing the baseball territory for each team?

[Mike Frasier Law]

Does anyone have that map showing the baseball territory for each team?

 

Here's a link to it: http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mlb-blackout-policy-under-attack-in-the-courts/

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

What do we know about the plaintiffs? Will they take this to trail or at least a happy outcome? Or are they in it for a settlement.

[iastfan112]

Even more infuriating is Fox Saturday baseball. If St. Louis or the Cubs are on, good luck ever seeing the Twins game. Logic would dictate that since channels are digital you could put the Twins game on 17-2 since it would be considered in market. Radio stations are bit spotty as well, best coverage in my area come from 570 am out of South Dakota, fine during the day but there was a real lack of options are night.

[Kyle Eliason]

MLB.tv no longer uses the billing zip code from credit cards, but checks each viewer's IP address for their location when the request to start streaming a game comes in to determine which blackout restrictions apply.

 

If you're tech savvy enough to set up your own proxy server for your home network, you can get around MLB.tv's restrictions so they won't apply to Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, etc.

 

For a simpler solution, there are browser extensions like Stealthy that are more user friendly (and I believe also exist for smartphones and tablets).

[Willihammer]

I'm currently midway through a 7 day free trial with unblock-us. Very slick service with a really straightforward tutorial. I plan to pay the $5/mo to keep it going.

[Kyle Eliason]

I think there will, eventually, be economic incentive for MLB to offer their product free of blackout restrictions and regional sports networks, but it is years away and dependent on the balance of viewership between cable and the internet.

 

In 2012, eight percent of US households had broadband internet but not a cable or satellite television subscription. That figure rose to nine percent in 2013. More encouraging, over half of households with broadband internet now have at least one television connected to the internet.

 

As more and more entertainment is offered on demand, sports become increasingly desirable for advertisers as people have more of an incentive to sit through commercials in order to watch games live. Eventually, however many years from now, when the balance of viewership tips in the internet's favor, it will make financial sense for MLB to ditch selling their broadcast rights to regional networks in favor of producing their own broadcasts and collecting advertising revenue directly.

 

Netflix and Hulu now both produce their own original content (as opposed to simply being online distributors), and HBO is testing internet-only subscriptions in Scandinavia. Slowly, à la carte internet programming is coming.

[Mike Sixel]

If only you could easily get interent w/o cable in more locations, more of us would cut the cable cord completely.

 

Also, why is it better for an regional sports network to get $5 a month from me, than $3 a month from me through a cable provider? Can't they figure out how to do the ad agreements?

[Otto von Ballpark]

Also, why is it better for an regional sports network to get $5 a month from me, than $3 a month from me through a cable provider? Can't they figure out how to do the ad agreements?

 

If the RSN takes $5 from you, the cable company will quit paying them $3 for anyone (including all the users who don't care about the RSN).

 

$5 multiplied by all sports fans is probably a lot less than $3 multiplied by all cable/satellite subscribers (even at reduced "cord-cutting" levels).

[Mike Sixel]

Will they, though? I don't think so. Not quickly anyway. But I understand the fear. At some point, we will get freedom of choice on channels, at some point.