Major League Baseball has filed a motion in the ongoing Diamond Sports Bankruptcy proceedings, reports Daniel Kaplan of the Athletic. The league is seeking payments on behalf of the Twins and Guardians.
According to MLB’s motion, a pair of the Diamond-operated regional sports networks — Bally Sports North (Minnesota) and Bally Sports Great Lakes (Cleveland) — informed those clubs they would not meet their April 1 installment under their local broadcasting deals. Those networks have continued to broadcast Twins and Guardians games, respectively, in the past few days. MLB is seeking a court order demanding payment to those two organizations by April 13, or alternatively, requesting the court terminate those contracts so the league could assume broadcasting rights for those clubs.
Diamond’s Bally Sports RSNs have broadcasting contracts with 14 MLB teams.* According to Kaplan, they’ve met their payments to 11 clubs. Minnesota, Cleveland and the Diamondbacks are the exceptions. The missed payment to the Arizona organization came before Diamond officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 14. As a result, the D-Backs are among the creditors seeking relief for pre-bankruptcy default. That was automatically paused once Diamond filed for bankruptcy, as the court proceedings will dictate how and to what extent its various creditors (which extend beyond MLB teams) can receive relief. That doesn’t apply to the Twins or Guardians, who are seeking relief for an alleged contractual breach that took place after the Chapter 11 filing.
With speculation about Diamond’s financial viability mounting for months, MLB has maintained it is in position to take over local broadcasts if necessary. Commissioner Rob Manfred has indicated on multiple occasions the league’s preferred outcome is for the Bally RSNs to honor all their existing commitments. That clearly isn’t going to happen with every team, though, which could necessitate MLB finding an alternative way to broadcast in-market games for clubs whose deals feel through.
According to Kaplan, MLB’s motion indicates they’re prepared to do that. Whether they’ll receive approval from the bankruptcy court — or if there’s a seemingly unlikely situation in which Diamond buys itself more time by making up its missed payments to the Twins and Guardians by next week — remains to be seen. Kaplan reports the Guardians’ broadcasting deal calls for $55MM in yearly rights fees, while the Twins’ agreement is supposed to pay them $42MM annually.
*The Angels, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Diamondbacks, Guardians, Marlins, Padres, Rangers, Rays, Reds, Royals, Tigers, and Twins are all broadcast by Bally.
You really can’t make this stuff ^
It’s above our pay grade LOL…..
Why is this surprising? It’s exactly how chapter 11 works. Bally will be able to shed the billions they owe Disney and the RSNs they see as unprofitable. They would account for how bad those RSNs are losing subscribers and the deals they made with the teams. MN, AZ and Cleveland might be on the losing end of that math. Everybody here was predicting the end of Bally’s and cable’s death grip on broadcasts and MLB would make everything better I predicted they would be wrong
Huge revenue loss for teams when their rsn stops paying them as much or all together. As someone who dumped cable decades ago it’s impressive how many people still have it. Nothing on there I want to see that I can’t find for cheap or free.
Live sports is about the only thing that people still watch live with ads, so the games are probably the only thing keeping RSNs afloat. They probably can’t give away the ads slots for the other 21 hours they program, hence the bankruptcies. Personally, I can’t live without cable since I don’t want to watch ads and am not going to pay for the premium levels of six streaming services to get the shows I watch on broadcast and cable and then have to figure out how to watch the Mets without cable.
How does your cable work? When I had cable last the only channels without ads were HBO &
similar movie channels…..
@marcfrombrooklyn People like you are part of the reason I think they are going to miss the good old days of cable. At least you watch baseball. So many people pay the regional sports fee so they can watch cnn fox news Yellowstone hgtv or their local news. They don’t care about baseball. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me.
@marcfrombrooklyn You might be missing out. Most the shows I like aren’t on cable. Yellowstone is about it. Netflix Amazon Paramount Disney Apple pump out a lot shows. Won’t see every mlb game with cable alone.
Is the internet. There’s always something free findable, even if it’s addy or buggy.
“I don’t want to watch ads and am not going to pay for the premium levels of six streaming services to get the shows I watch on broadcast and cable and then have to figure out how to watch the Mets without cable.’
Interesting, when I had cable we had ads and now with YTTV we still have ads. As for premium levels of stream service, I get the Disney bundle via Verizon, pay for HBO and Netflix. Apple tv+, Paramount+ and Peacock we rotate services and all of that is cheaper than what we were paying for cable. The only channels I miss is AHC, A&E and the History channel, although that channel is less about history and more about reality tv. I feel ya when it comes to your Mets. Even with MLB TV I am blacked out of our local teams. Just glad I am not a Dodgers or Angels fan,
Decades ago? So what made you dump cable in the 80’s or 90’s ??????
Time flies, eh?
my wife cut the cable when kids went to high school. both graduated college but we have lived all this time without it.
@aragon Many have. I think I read cable viewers are half as much as the peak. I don’t pay anything or sometimes a few bucks a month and see everything I want. Most these services they give away for free, have a free trial or 99 cents for a month or 3. I also don’t need to watch everything the day it comes out. It will take most these services 3 to 5 years to create enough that I can’t watch in a few weeks or a month. If anyone ever wants advice on cutting the cord hit me up.
Cable didn’t exist until the mid 1980’s and didn’t penetrate more than 40 million homes until the mid-1990’s. That is also about when satellite TV services like DIRECTV came into being. I guess if he dropped it in 2003 that is 2 decades ago, but if he did, there was no streaming options then. Only OTA. You know, local broadcasts with an antenna. US TV didn’t go digital, which made streaming possible, until 2009.
Cable on the Minnesota-Canada border in the 70s. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, Canada channel and TBS with the Braves. ESPN came in 1979 with Aussie rules football.
@Winslow Leach Internet and dvds. Had season tickets for sports. If I wanted to watch road games everyone else had cable. Cable didn’t use to be expensive. We just weren’t huge tv people. But at least there used to be scripted tv shows. Not many left on cable.
Netflix and Direct TV became more mainstream in the mid 2000s…so yea “decades ago” is feasible here.
Braaaaaack. Wrong answer, but thanks for playing. The true answer is that by releasing those teams from their contracts with DSG, MLB will be able to increase revenue by being able to stream those games locally.
That is the reason that Manfred was positively giddy at the Winter Meetings in San Diego when talking about the possibility of MLB getting back the broadcast rights from DSG and WBD.
MLB WANTS DSG and WBD to go belly up or forfeit their rights to MLB broadcasts. Manfred is chomping at the bit.
@websoulsurfer We will see. I would rather have the safety of everyone who has cable satellite paying me even if they don’t watch baseball. Most don’t watch. Are the Pirates going to get 60 million a year from people paying just to watch them? Are older viewers going to stream? I seen many not willing to figure out apple peacock to watch a game. How many will be told nah you don’t need to pay for that.
@yourdreamgm
the only reason i had cable until this year was because of my dad, he couldn’t ever figure out a computer and barely an iphone. now that he’s gone i got rid of cable because well i don’t see the value of paying 80+ a month for 3 channels and spectrum hd boxes were junk i got better quality using pirate streams of cards games. if cable companies were smart they would let there customers personalize there packages with what they want for a decent price we probably wouldn’t be talking about this. tbh cable sounds like blockbuster in the mid 00’s when they laughed at netflix when they had a chance to buy them. bb thought netflix was a fad and streaming would only be for the “nerds”, ff to now netflix is one of top streaming provider and bb is just a memory to us that know what a vhs tape is.
YourDreamGM. Issue is that it’s now MOST people streaming. It feels like someone trying to market corded land line phones. Yeah..it’ll upset Grandpa Joe when he can’t get the game on the TV. But it’s time to go over and teach him to stream. Get these local games so kids can see them with no blackout. If I’m the Royals I’d be absolutely ALL OVER making sure kids could watch games…because now 29 other teams own their market with ZERO blackout. Every day.
Them forcing people to pay for sports channels they didin’t watch increased the cord cutting by people who didn’t watch enough sports. Eventually it was a losing proposition for the cable companies. Diamond thought the cable and satellite companies would keep accepting price increases. Nope, some started telling Bally that they would lose less money without Bally than they would lose with them. That started the now unstoppable chain recation.
The Bally bankruptcy will accelerate cord cutting even more. Those people still using cable to watch sports will now cut the cord. The infrastructre costs of cable will exceed what the remaining customers are willing to pay as content quality gets worse and worse.
My point is that the safety was an illusion. There’s no safety in forcing people to pay for things they don’t want once there’s an alternative available.
@Dock_Elvis Kids or anyone willing to ask ? in search engine shouldn’t have any issue finding games or avoiding blackouts. Mlb is the one who needs to worry about the blackouts. Definitely teach grandpa grandma. I’ve done it a few times and it’s easy. Worst case get them a Roku, really user friendly.
YourDreamGM. A lot of people aren’t seeking go do anything unethical. They just want to buy a product. And it’s BIZAARE when a company won’t sell it to them even with added fee.
Anyone can eat steak every night too. Depends on what their willing go do to get it put if the grocery store. A business shouldn’t create such dumb hurdles
@brodie-bruce Cable isn’t awful if you are willing to threaten to leave every year and get the new user discount. Buy your own modem. And share your password with family so they can pretty much have cable as well via streaming. I had success with older folks being able to use Roku. I think it’s easier than a cable remote. Streaming is starting to do cable company tactics. I don’t think it will work as well. People got used to the streaming and aren’t going back.
YourDreamGM, issue with cable or dish is teams are selective on WHICH one they’ll broadcast on. In the KC market you literally just have DirectTV. They aren’t even on a cable system to my knowledge, or DishNetwork. And why force people to spend upwards of 150/month for an unneeded service . Because people are also paying for umpteen streaming services
@Dock_Elvis I read a article and allegedly mlb doesn’t care about vpn users. They just want their $150 Can’t promote it because of the rsn. Many people would buy it if not for blackouts.
YourDreamGm. Can a VPN be used through a PS4? I can watch through my SamsungFold, but I’m usually just trying to watch on TV. We stream through a PS4 currently.
@ydgm
i’ve tried that with spectrum the problem is they know they have my subdivision over the barrel. i can get a different tv provider but then now i’m paying 2 bills one to either att or dish and i’m still paying spectrum for the internet because my choices for internet are them or centry-tel’s slow a$$ dsl. i don’t have to buy a modem because spectrum provides them for free, my router is mine because there’s are junk and my friends and family had the password for it but i would have to setup the next thing my dad wanted to watch because he just couldn’t get it.
@dock
you can actually the initial setup i think might be a little advanced unless the vpn has an app for the ps4. i know people use vpn’s on the ps4 when they game to stay hidden from the f-tards that like to look up ip address and do dumb stuff like making fake claims to the police and swat is kicking in your door because someone is mad because they lost a game
@Dock_Elvis If you use a hotspot easy. Modem probably/believe so but would need to search engine how to do it. We limit the use of gaming devices to gaming to prolong their life. Use a laptop connected to tv or mirror a mobile device.
@brodie-bruce can you get the TMobile internet or elon musk or Amazon? Mobile hotspot? I spend time on a boat and can watch everything with just 4g. In 5g areas multiple people can use it but everyone has their own phone anyways.
Yourdreamgm. The PS4 is basically FOR streaming without gaming. It’s held up a long long time. Your Hotspot advice is absolutely great..thanks. we had to do that during Covid for schooling because our internet speeds were so awful at that point. Until 2021 we weren’t able to stream at all. Rural internet in the US has been a major issue. It was exposed during Covid. Appreciate the advice. End blackouts ya know lol
@ydgm i can but the cost to speed isn’t worth it unfortunately as much i hate spectrum there deal is better than anyone but att (which is available everywhere around me but not at my house) if i spent more time away from my house then i would see mobile hotspots as a better option
brodie-bruce Cable isn’t as bad either if you have to use their internet. Some bundles are decent. I’ve done it all. Used a cable companies slow wifi everywhere or neighbors wifi for free. $20 or $30 phone plans hotspot. Awful dsl back in the day. All of them worked well to stream anything. Gaming wise they put a hurt on my kd.
YourDreamGM-I’m hoping you had your neighbors approval using Neighbors wi-fi in past 🙂
@ydgm not saying cable is horrible like i said i had for years for my dad, for me it’s a waste of money because there is only a few channels i watch and i’m not paying 50+ each month for 3 to 4 channels i may watch less than 20 hrs a week when 99% of what i watch i can get on my broken iphone or computer that is hooked to my tv
@GCB Of course. Sharing is a good way to save $. Binge watch all your Netflix now before they make it irritating to do so.
@brodie-bruce I am just saying with some bundle prices you might as well get cable and internet vs just internet. Depends on area. There is nothing on cable I want to watch that I couldn’t watch for much cheaper with streaming. Sometimes I would have to wait a few hours or next day.
brodie-bruce-I won’t pay for netflix either i just find anything they have on there using a torrent which i’m sure you’re aware of.These people who make or made tons of money to blow don’t care how much money it costs but us poor suckers can’t afford to waste money on sports and other content.If only you could buy groceries and other things using torrents 🙂
“Braaaaaack. Wrong answer, but thanks for playing.”
The evidence keeps piling up.
I guess these teams will now be in the dark soon, not the best way to treat your loyal fans that have stood by their teams all the way through thick and thin. These franchises should be ashamed of themselves, this behavior is unacceptable. I feel so bad for their fans, this is their reward. Smh
@CaptainJudge99 Fans will have to adjust. Nothing the teams can do if a tv channel won’t pay more than they can make streaming. Don’t blame teams or rsn. I seen many fans not pleased when they found out they had to go to apple peacock Amazon and even YouTube. Some refused to do it.
Fans will have to adjust. Nothing the teams can do if a tv channel won’t pay more than they can make streaming.
=======================
A little off-target here, maybe, but I sense an under-current of “some” fans objecting to not being able get stuff for free. The only way to get good stuff is to pay for it.
@judge
If the courts don’t allow it, it’s on the RSN, not the teams. It appears MLB is doing everything they can. Why do you think the franchises should be ashamed because the RSN went bankrupt?
@stymeedone- ok, interesting and your right, so RSN is to blame then. Thanks for clarifying. I just can’t imagine being a diehard fan of a team, and not being to watch them play. Smh. Hopefully this is something that could be resolved quickly.
Guys! Don’t worry about the Twins & Guardians-THEY WILL MAKE PAYROLL!
They are owned by billionaires remember? They can use some of that walking around money
like Robert Kraft used to have a
“happy ending” during his massage!
THEY HAVE THE PAYROLL!!!!!
They are just so USED TO other people throwing money at them to solve problems/make profit
that they can’t find their check
book but it’s here somewhere?
IT’S RIGHT THERE!!!!!
BUT THE TWINS & GUARDIANS WILL MAKE PAYROLL!!!!!
Don’t believe those Internet/Twitter nay sayers!
Never stop nay saying the
nay sayers!
They will not only make payroll but profits as well.
Cash for Clunkers and Bailouts for billionaires.
@Jorge
The Guardians are not owned by a billionaire. I can tell that MLB will not allow a team to miss payroll. I can also tell that you don’t seem to realize the RSNs have rich owners, too. Like most every large business, the owners run the business on the funds of the business, not the funds of their personal accounts. That’s why Bally is in bankruptcy. You seem to be the internet naysayer here.
How does that TV exec boot taste?
@stymeedone is that sarcasm? The Dolans aren’t billionaires? They are one of the richest owners out there.
The Dolans’ wealth IS the Guardians. They run a rinky dink law firm. They got the money to buy the Indians from Larry’s brother in New York who owns the Knicks and Rangers. His wealth came from Cablevision.
“Rich people bad, reeeeeee!”
Without rich people in search of profit, most of us wouldn’t survive minutes on our own. The only self-sufficient thing I do is to grow tomatoes and some herbs.
It doesn’t matter how rich the owner is. Teams are separate businesses and the funds don’t intermingle with the owner’s personal funds or other businesses. Literally you or I could own a team and it would have the exact same profit and loss statement as it has now.
It has nothing to do with whether they want to spend their own money,All these teams get enough revenue to compete if they really want to,Lots just pocket the profits and cry poor,My Team was cheap for decades then their owner spent money for 10 years,Team went to 2 World Series,Unfortunately he passed away and now team back to being cheap and are in constant rebuild.If the owner has a will to win that’s the 1st step most don’t put money where mouth is,
Seamholic….this! People are very blessed when an owner like Illitch in Detroit spent his personal wealth to boost payroll in Detroit. That’s not how most business operates. It takes a lot of money to purchase a team. That doesn’t mean the money isn’t then tied up,and most recouped on sale.
Yesterday the Yankees were on TBS. I have youtubeTV and I’m in Long Island. I got an eye with a slash over it saying this program was blocked in my area. Used to this at this point i didn’t really flinch and I checked to see what else was on and saw the Celtics were playing the 76ers. I’m not an NBA fan but I said hey I can’t watch the Yanks so I turned it on and stayed locked on Embiid for the next hour without turning the channel off. I was already looking at the 76ers schedule earlier today to see what was in front of them. Point being…don’t isolate your audience, without me even actively realizing I was drifting toward another form of entertainment bc of the inconveniences in watching MLB’s.
I never used YouTube tv but wouldn’t think national games would be blacked out unless they were also available on yes and I wouldn’t think that was the case. Blackouts and things like this turn people off for paying to watch mlb online.
@Yourdream
Local games are subject to blackout rules in my area on YTTV. Even though the Lakers vs the Clippers were on ESPN, just like Yanks4life, I got the slash saying the game is blacked out in your area. So I had to resort to other means to watch my Clippers get the season sweep on the Lakers.
@yanks & lamars
iirc for yttv if you get a vpn and set it to where your ip is in like il then you have no blackout, unless yt is doing what mlb started doing and it’s based off your billing address and physical location for blackouts.
@lamars It’s because of things like this I relate so well to the baseball team in Pittsburgh. That and the price going from $35 to $73.
That’s kind of a universal truth. Never let the customer think about anything really. That’s how the NBA shot themselves in the foot with the political correctness. Once the customer stumbles across an alternative, they might not ever return.
@ JoeBrady
C’mon man, you really can’t be that dense can you? The reason for the decline in ratings for the NBA and all sports in general and especially baseball is due to people dumping cable tv. Why do you think Bally/Diamond Sports are going bankrupt? It has nothing to do with your political beliefs.
Twinkie’s and Guardians? Must be a boatload of moolah. Defendant Diamond should wad up the money and hurl it at Manfred. “Here’s your $8.57. That’s all they could get. Keep the change”
My issue with MLB streaming is that not all of the games are on MLB.TV. The fee is supposed to be for “all out of market games”, but the kicker is now the games are not guaranteed to be live. If you want all of the “out of market” live games, you need access to YouTube, AppleTV+,Peacock, and ESPN.
As a long-time MLB.TV subscriber, this really irks me. Not just the dilution of the MLB.TV package, but the horrible broadcasts on those other streaming services. I rather listen to the radio feeds that deal with the commentators on YouTube and Peacock.
farscott-It’s almost impossible to find any good announcers.Most are terrible.
@gcb
the only one left is bob up in mil. and something tells me he is going to keep calling games even if he is on life support in hospice care at the age of 90+
brodie-bruce-I was almost sure Bob Eueker had retired last year but i was wrong and your absolutely correct he’s still doing his thing,I remember getting his autograph outside Tiger Stadium when the Brewers were still in A.l. back in the late 80’s or 90’s 🙂
@gcb
nice man that’s pretty kool
brodie-bruce-It was so great going to so many games at a classic ballpark like Tiger Stadium,Not only was the stadium 100% better to watch games at but you had access to players inside and outside if you were an autograph collector,
GCB;
You have crazy standards.
Most MLB TV audio is bad. The announcers consider themselves celebrities and put selling their brand ahead of the viewers reason to tuning in (put the 2 NYC teams at the top of that list) – i.e. to watch the game. But some broadcasts are very good – I’d start with the Giants, Astros, Phillies, Orioles and now Angels (Wayne Randazzo moved over from Mets radio). However, the pitch clock is cutting time off between pitches and that’s changing the endless replays and announcer posturing between pitches.
When watching games on MLB.TV I almost always use one of the 4 available radio feeds to go with the audio. The 5 teams above are the exception where I listen to the TV audio.
Your right i have high standards in announcers,I find most annoying as hell.I’d rather have a robot do the games.I can’t stand most of their annoying personalities.My fav team has terrible announcers,:( I’m not into comedians or stupid banter.Back when i 1st followed my team we had such enjoyable announcers in Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey and George Kell on TV.
Samuel-your right about Newyork announcers Mets tv announcers are really hard to listen to.Yankees i can handle a bit better.I think White Sox tv get annoying quick and their play by play did peacock games also.He was on fox the other day.John Smoltz makes me feel like i’m pounding my head with a brick hearing him speak.
Samuel-Im not a fan of Jim Palmer on Orioles games,or John Kruck on Phillies,though some teams rotate announcers so it changes,The other ones you mention aren’t Bad,Giants are probably the best ones during homes,Their road games have different announcers,Dallas Braedan of A’s Rex Hudler Royals,Buck Martinez Jays,make you head for that mute button.I don’t have access to radio announcers other than Tigers.
Yep, and the only way to get around that is by using a VPN.
This is just the start as streaming is going to replace cable more and more.
Of course streaming revenues will grow but the question is if they will grow enough bc with cable there were always people not watching baseball kinda paying for the ones who do too.
Also baseball generally has an older audience so we will see if enough young guys are going to be willing to pay for streaming.
So streaming either will need to get more expensive or they need to be able to attract more young people. This is a big risk for mlb.
The biggest issue MLB will have is to figure out its blackout restrictions if they want to be successful in the streaming market. How is it possible for someone living in Iowa to be blacked out by 6 teams. smh
A place with no actual MLB teams no less. It shows how archaic and antiquated the system for blackouts is.
Domingo? Young guys? I’d venture most people under 60 now stream more than cable/satellite. MLB has been locked to these contracts that looked bad from the start for cable operators. MLB needs go own it’s own broadcasting
If MLB doesnt figure out its accessibility problems for fans wanting to watch games easily,and for reasonable cost, MLB will soon be less popular than soccer. It’s a farce the patchwork of local broadcast deals that require an engineering degree just to find tv broadcast for your team. That, and the revenue disparities between teams with these local deals need to be fixed. I dont know the answer, but the current chaos only diminshes mlb long term viability as a major sporting event in america.
It’s not hard to find what channel your team is on.Even i’m not that lazy.
Ok ole wise one, how do I watch the Dodgers and Angels in my area without cable? I can’t watch them on YTTV when they air.
lamars-I’m not dumb enough to give out links on here but it’s not hard to find lots of sites streaming games.Google will help you find them.Not all are great but if you try different ones you’ll find the best ones.If i was talking to you on a private chat i’d give you the info.
@lamars go to a search engine. Google seems to be what the kids use. Ask your? there. Also ask. How to avoid blackouts? What’s the best free vpn?
There’s one site that doesn’t show games live but post links to replays of games.I prefer watching live but since you can’t watch all games at once it’s nice to have this available as well/
@ydgm using free vpns are horrible the throttle down the speeds to where streaming with them is painful and slow
@brodie-bruce I have some that don’t seem to have much effect. Also with mlbtv you just need to start the game. Once it starts you don’t need a vpn.
@ydgm
didn’t know that you can shut off the vpn afterwards then again i never really tested it either but then again i went a paid for a vpn that doesn’t do logging but i also got a vpn for other reasons that don’t involve streaming.
A link is not a channel. I know several websites I can go to watch my team illegally. When you say you can find a channel for your team. I thought you meant a real channel and not a link.
@lamars cable has channels. Pay your $100 $200 and watch them there. For under $100 look into apps like direct tv internet, fubo, bally sports app, mlb.tv. Will probably need vpn.
So many people have said Baseball is in big trouble but even NHL which is a lot less popular continues to survive,Even if less people watch MLB in future generations it’s going to survive.And these new changes to the sport making most games go fast have made the game way more fun to watch.I’ve watched several games barely over 2 hours which is so much more fun than previous years.Not watching batters play with their gloves and walk around anymore has been great,
MLB suffers from blackout restrictions that affect multiple teams in some areas. While I believe the NHL doesn’t have that problem. For example, in my area I can’t watch two local teams, but my friend in Iowa is blacked out by 6 teams, 6 freaking teams!
Lamars…we lived in Iowa. Yeah 6 team blackout but that’s in truth up to a 12 team blackout if they aren’t playing eachother. And only two of those teams actually had broadcasting in our area.
Wow, upt to 12 teams? That is crazy!
Lamars- well you figure those 6 teams aren’t playing themselves. So that’s 6 games unless the Cardinals-Cubs are playing eachother, etc. Only the Cubs/White Sox even broadcasted in our city. The idea was that somehow people should call their cable operator and DEMAND the Brewers be put on. That was their business logic. Protect the out of date broadcast means.
Mlb needs to quit selling of their asset. Broadcast their own games and stop trying to help competitors like Appletv grow…sell ad space and keep the money. No team out there says…”sorry, you can’t attend today..tickets are just for YouTube watchers”. They literally are slicing and dicing their markets. All this move to make the game more interesting…for people not to see it.
Blackouts are the worst thing ever
You don’t have to deal with blackouts.All games are available for free for anyone online,
So are viruses and identity theft. The only games that are legitimately available for free online are the nationally available Apple exclusive games.
layventsky-VIruses and Identity theft?Anybody can have that happen to them just going online.I’m surprised your online if your that paranoid.
Mlbtv has freegames of the day many days of the week so Apple tv is not the only legitimate way to get games online for free.Plus you-tube had free game every week previous years.It;s still a possibility they might do it again in future months if they reach agreement with mlb
Not this year, Apple TV+ now requires a subscription to watch the games.
@gcb
you can have your identity stolen without ever being online unless you live out in the middle of nowhere in cave, but if your living off the grid like that you probably don’t care about your identity in the first place.
as far as viruses you can get those too offline, little harder put still possible
We’re not talking bout those kind of viruses 🙂
@gcb i know but i’ve fixed a lot of computers because of viruses and they were never online but got the virus from a flash drive that had it hidden within the files they put on the drive.
I won’t use a flash drive on my system unless I purchased it new. My nephew used one on my PC long ago without telling me he found it in a parking lot. It did eat my PC. Luckily I knew how to recover. The worst part is reapplying every single update since your OS and other software were installed. I also wasn’t using online banking or purchasing yet. I would have been worried if I had.
@cf57
the same thing can happen to a new flash drive, you can hide viruses in a “safe word document” that you got off your pc at work, but i do agree that you shouldn’t plug anything into your computer unless you knows where it comes from
We weren’t allowed to attach removable media to work computers. Any transfer had to be by e-mail. Work was very strict just as I am. I don’t get viruses because I use anti-virus, make all security updates and am very careful about websites I go to and links I click on. I only use flash drives to back up my own files.
Have you guys ever thought of formatting a flash drive when you first get it?
@samuel depending on on how the virus works it can activate or at least it can transfer over before you can format. not even unix based systems are immune but it’s a lot harder. then again anytime i get a flash drive that i don’t know where it came from i plug into a laptop that i don’t care about with nothing on it to check it out.
Not sure why anyone would pay 1 cent when you can find everything available on cable,Satellite for free online.
GCB;
MLB games are not free, on-line, and live.
MLB has exclusive rights to those broadcasts. Anyone showing them without paying a fee would be sued faster then a person could say: “I make $22k a week working 2 hours a day”.
Samuel–Not sure how they get away with it without being sued but it’s been going on for a long time and sports leagues haven’t been able to stop them.I know i won’t pay 1oo’s of dollars for sports if it’s not available for free i’d go with out.Fortunately poor people have alternatives.
Samuel-Everyone with a brain knows that Sports Leagues own the legal rights to their product.My Question to you.Are you seriously unaware despite this you can still find this content on line for free.You can have a moral judgement about it but it happens and no matter how they try to stop the pirates from profitting off their content they are one step ahead of them.And there’s lot of people not getting paid tons of money who won’t fork over the kind of money these companies charge.
GCB;
I subscribe to MLB.TV. Every year I follow between 4 and 7 teams closely. I figured it out the other day and realize that I watch somewhere around parts of 500-plus games a year, as I’m often watching 2-3 games at a time. I get locked out of a few when Apple or Peacock or ESPN is televising the game. It’s bothersome, but currently not a sore point with me unless that grows. By following those teams I get to see all other MLB teams as they play my teams.
I don’t follow the team in my local market – which locks me out if they’re playing one of my 4-7 teams. But if I want to watch one of their games it’s achieved and I can replay it 2 hours after it ends (I can also replay 90%-plus games 24/7/365 on-demand). This costs me $149 for 12 months (I also get Spring Training games) – less money than taking 3 people over to see the MLB team play one game in-person – pay gas, parking, refreshments, and souvenirs.
I have far more baseball games then I have time or inclination to watch. $149 is nothing. I don’t have to cheat or hunt down an illegal broadcast for every game I want to watch. I haven’t watched TV for well over 15 years as the news is slanted (I see live streaming of things on You Tube if I’m interested in something); the dramas long ago covered every conceivable human issue and now look like a Stan Freeberg comedy skit as they’re more and more bizarre trying to get views; the live interview / talk shows have some of the dumbest and shallowest people in the world hosting them; and the comedy is not funny – it’s a combinate of stupid, immature, and insulting. Watching baseball and old movies is my home visual entertainment.
So even with watching MLB games as much as I do, at most it’s 4 hours a day/night for maybe 4-5 days a week during the season – and that time is not contiguous – I often start watching, do something else, then come back later to watch.
@gcb
i have a simple solution to the piracy, now this won’t completely stop it but make it not worth the effort. i.e. i used to pirate new music (if i liked the album i’d go buy it but not buying before i hear a few times) but apple music was cheap enough with 99% of the music out there and i can use it on all my devices. now if mlb had different packages for customers that are reasonably priced people will buy it especially if you can get the same regional content that the rsn’s provides me personally i like the pre/post game coverage. long and short of it put a good product out worth the money and easy to use people will buy it instead of piracy.
Samuel-I’m the same as you i watch lots and lots of baseball probably double or more than the 500 games you said you watch if you add up all the innings of games.I know you said $150 isn’t much to you but there are lot of people like myself who really don’t have any disposable income for things like sports.I’m lucking i amazingly found a super cheap high speed internet gadget for less than $30 Canadian per month.These pirated sites which don’t take any effort to find or hunting as you say are the only reason i at least have something to look forward to each day.
brodie-bruce–Personally i don’t want the pirate sites to go away,It’s my only source of entertainment,I seriously can’t afford to pay for any of the content,It’s hard enough to afford basic nessessities,Only the fact i stumbled upon super cheap decent internet for less than $30 am i even on internet,Wish i knew how to fix comps like you though.
@gcb
they won’t there will always be piracy especially if there is a way to profit on it and as long as countries with no copyright laws stay around. my point being if they want to minimize the effects of piracy make it cheap and so easy to use that you don’t want to pirate. most people are lazy (myself included) and will do what’s the easiest
Sending the MLB to collect their payments is one way to go, but it lacks the personal, hands-on touch of hired goons.
MLB needs to sell their products to younger people. Most people middle age and younger now stream. End the blackouts, and advertise locally over their streaming service. It’s mind-boggling that a team would want a young person growing up as a fan of an out of market team. I’ve read that 65% of the Royals market cannot view their games..and 100% of that is anyone who buys the MLBTV package. People are not buying cable, and satellite isn’t far behind.
It’s wild when a business refuses to atleast sell you their product. Not even at an additional charge…just nothing
@dock
the reason kc has such a small market is because unless you live in the metro area of kc your not watching kc games anyways. just using the state of mo, all the small farm towns in the middle of the state we’ll can them the up for grabs areas in mo because there about equally far from stl or kc. because of how often stl puts out a quality product and kc has only been around since the 60’s and has only been good a handful of times so most became cards fans.
Brodie- that’s not true. Most of the Royals market is actually to the west up to 200-300 miles onto KS and NE. Good a handful of times? They were solidly competitive from around 1975-95. Then again in the past decade. In summer the K is full of people on trips…often DAY trips from places like Wichita. That’s a 6 hour roundtrip…one day. Why they used to have turf in KC when they eveb had Pete Toma as groundkeeper. They didn’t want rain outs.
But this is about TV. No other team broadcasts into KS. KC has a MASSIVE regional market area.
Children now can see 29 teams play on mlbtv in KS excwpt the Royals. That’s how the Cubs built their empire. And why so many Gen Xers are now Cubs fans. We didn’t have Royals at all on tv
Dock_Elvis-Yes it’s pretty dumb how MLB operates at least they were smart enough to make games faster.I’m loving games not lasting forever.
GBC. They got the decision on clocks right. It’s not often it seems like they do.
@dock
i agree on the clocks at first i was against it but after seeing it in play i love it and tbh i don’t even notice it. i get mlb is a timeless game but doesn’t mean i wanna watch guys readjust there equipment every pitch or walk around the mound or play with the rosin bag for 5 mins between pitches. it’s just sad that bb had to put a clock into play when all the umps had to do was enforce the existing rules
@brodie
Anything going on with the clock will work out. There’s going to be adjustments. The one thing I do wish would go now is the extra inning rule. It thoroughly trashed the momentum of that A’s comeback against Cleveland…when extras is the ONE time you might not want a rule effecting the actual outcome that directly.
@dock
not a fan of the extra inning rule, i understand it but let’s be honest here before the rule how many games went past 12 innings, i would be happy with a compromise 1-12 play by normal rules 13+ put the extra runner on
@brodie
Well, if you’re humming games at 2-2.5 hours why cheat the excitement of extra innings? I look for the runner rule to be eliminated.
@dock
i think 99% of bb fans including me can agree on that
@brodie
99% of fan opinion doesn’t seem to usually matter, though lol. We’re over a barrel….atleast they think. But I think they’re finally feeling the heat of other entertainment options.
@dock
well said we are just $$$ to them but i also think there starting to listen because thanks to covid people started realizing they can live without stuff. just hope they realize before they kill there golden goose
@brodie
They need to allow the game to change to appeal to a contemporary audience. Something the game has always strived to do in whatever era. “Tradition” people often don’t comprehend how their traditions started. People will swear God planted the ivy at Wrigley. It was planted in 1938.
I’m traditional on virtue. But pragmatic about delivery.
States and cities who are financing the new stadiums with public money should be paying attention. Public money financing should come with a requirement all television contracts eliminate the blackout restriction and allow fans to watch the team for free.
In the case of the Twins, their cable contract with Fox Sports North -> Bally Sports North was coming to an end this year. It’s a bit surprising the Twins weren’t able to find a 1yr replacement for Bally as their bankruptcy issue has been known about for months.
@martras
it’s probably because the twins couldn’t get out of the contract without paying a heavy fee, now i don’t know what there contract says but i’m sure it came down to something like this.
twins broad room – we got 1 year left and bally is going under do cut and run now?
twins legal staff – according to the contract language we would be paying a lot of fees
tbr – hmmm don’t wanna pay them what do we do
tls- we ride this out see what happens and let them default then we can walk away without paying and we go to plan b
tbr – we like that plan we’ll go with that one
It’s possible Bally didn’t want to cancel the contract and let the Twins out of it because Bally wanted to use the debt as part of their excuse in bankruptcy court, but approaching Bally about mutually voiding the remaining contract would have seemed like a good second step by the Twins after they explored the market.
martras;
Did you attend a government school?
The Twins should broadcast their games for free,
LOL
You think enough fans would show up and pay at the park to even contribute enough pay for Carlos Correa’s salary, let alone any other players and the people that work at the park?
Not only should cable be free, but beer should be free as well.
@Samuel
Broadcast television without a pay to view requirement. I swear, the amount of times I have to spell things out for people on this site…
MLB teams are taking massive amount of public money. The public should be able to enjoy the fruits of that taxation.
Twins avg. / max. attendance = 23k & 40k
Average price per ticket $40.
Income =
23,000 x 40 x81 g ($74.5MM gate receipts at avg attendance)
or
40,000 x $40 x 81 g ($129.6MM gate receipts at max attendance)
The Twins TV contract is estimated $40MM annually meaning the Twins bring in 2-3x as much in gate revenues from tickets alone than TV contracts.
Just put in market games on MLB.com as soon as the rights are recovered for each team. Rent the rights to any cable or satellite company that wants them; but, no exclusivity.
Secondly no more blackouts. You’re blocking thousands of people from the product in the hope that a handful of them will say “Hey, lets go to the game since we can’t watch it on TV.” I don’t belive that happens much if at all. Conversely, people planning on going to the game are not going to stay home because it’s on the TV. It’s a very different experience that most people either do a few times a year or as season ticket holders. Blackouts have little if any impact on attendence. It’s a fear that became a pervasive belief. Can you imagine someone not going to the game in the old days simply because they could watch it on that horrible little black and white TV? I can’t.
Conversely, people planning on going to the game are not going to stay home because it’s on the TV.
====================
I agree 100%. I’ve probably been to 500 games, and I have never once considered staying home because the game is televised. It’s complete -0- consideration.
I have dish they took the regional sports network ( Pittsburgh one )off years ago. So I still pay a dish bill and get no local sport channels . Going back in the day it all started with espn fees and they wanted more and more so they could get the nfl games.
I wish MLB would take over for Bally Sports Southwest so I can save the $13.99 monthly RSN fee from Fubo.
Agreed!
If you want to watch games you are going to pay money. Stop overthinking this.
Can’t understand why this is taking so long? They aren’t going to pay their contract, have literally admitted as much and are hiding in bankruptcy protection. I just want to watch baseball!!