I have been a subscriber to MLB.TV for five years now. As a Cubs fan, spending the money was not strictly necessary when I first signed up, because WGN was carrying almost all of their games and my cable provider includes WGN in its channel lineup. I could watch virtually every game at home. Nonetheless, I wanted to be able to watch games when I was not at home on my laptop. As soon as I signed up, I realized that half the games were blacked out. However, back then, the blackout only applied to home games, so I still received half the games. I was a little miffed, but I accepted that as part of the deal. The Cubs are not in business to give away their product. Fair enough. And, in any event, even though I am a Cubs fan, I am also a baseball fan and have been known to watch almost any team.
However, as time has gone by, the blackout restrictions have become worse. Now ALL televised games are blacked out – not just home games. Furthermore, WGN now has only about a third or less of the televised games. If I lived in Chicago or the surrounding area, I would not have much of a problem with this situation. However, I live in Indianapolis, 180 miles and three and one half hours’ drive away. I hardly live in the local area. Moreover, not only are the Cubs blacked out here, but the White Sox and Reds are as well. In other words, if you live in Indianapolis, you are credited with having THREE home teams, even though there are none in Indy. What’s more is that I cannot even tune in the WGN radio broadcasts and there does not appear to be an Indianapolis radio station that broadcasts Cubs games (Reds, yes; Cubs, no). Supposedly WNDE AM-1260 carries the games, but it seems every time I want to listen to one, they are either not broadcasting it or my reception is terrible (AM radio at night is an iffy proposition).
When I moved up to Ann Arbor, Michigan for law school, I signed up as I always do, but found myself blacked out up there even though the area in which I lived was not a blackout area. MLB explained to me that the applicable blackout area is based upon where the credit card securing the account is billed. In my case, my credit card bills were still being sent home to Indy. I suffered through my first year of law school getting only half the games. During my second year, I changed my billing address to Ann Arbor and enjoyed a summer full of Cubs baseball. However, when I graduated and moved back to Indy, I had to change my billing address and am now stuck with the blackouts. It looks as though this may have changed and is now based on the location of the server from which you are accessing the game. If so, it may be possible to access the game through a proxy. Unfortunately, this seems dishonest to me and it really should not be necessary for someone like me where MLB has denied us a local franchise.
Astoundingly, it is even worse at my father’s home in Spencer, Iowa. In Spencer, they are blacked out from the Twins (221 miles), White Sox (495 miles), Cardinals (534 miles), Royals (353 miles), Cubs (495 miles) and Brewers (453 miles)! How in the world does that make sense? If every one of those teams were broadcast on local television stations, I could understand that. But, in fact, the only “local” team (in that their games are regularly broadcast) is the Twins from what I can tell when I visit. It is as though MLB is intentionally going out of its way to make sure nobody ever purchases their product! Of course, I probably shouldn’t be surprised by the idiocy of an organization that would hire Keith Olbermann.
I am inclined to tell MLB to get bent altogether. In fact, if I could get English broadcasts of Japanese games, I’d probably just become a Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters fan and abandon MLB entirely. But, if MLB were involved in the enterprise, we would probably find that anyone who did not already have a Japanese franchise in their city would be blacked out of most of the broadcasts!
What I find completely ridiculous, as I mentioned, is that in no rational sense can I be said to be living in the local Cubs viewing area (or the Reds for that matter – it is no hardship to be blacked out of the White Sox games). Furthermore, the annual cost for MLB.TV is $109.95 so it is not exactly like I am trying to avoid paying for the product I wish to receive.
What I am saying is that I will not be signing up for another year of MLB.TV again unless they change the breadth of the areas caught up in the local blackout areas. I urge anyone considering spending money on MLB’s product to think carefully about it. If you are a Cubs fan that lives in Los Angeles and don’t care about watching Dodgers or Angels games, then you’ll be fine. But, if not, you may find yourself being screwed on the very games you most want to see.