Friday, August 8, 2008

Busting the Blackouts

Those of you who don't live in Major League cities will soon be able to see a hell of a lot more games on Extra Innings or MLB.tv.:
Baseball’s territorial blackouts, the scourge of so many frustrated television and streaming-video viewers, will be eliminated for the 2009 season if Major League Baseball’s executive council follows suggestions president Bob DuPuy plans on presenting next week.

At the owners’ meetings Wednesday, DuPuy said he will propose that if a team is not broadcasting in a geographic location for at least one season, it loses the right to black out games in that area. Gone would be the blackouts that prevent folks in Iowa and Las Vegas from seeing as many as six games each night and have caused viewing havoc throughout the country . . .

. . . Competition for new territories, DuPuy figures, is a good thing: The breadth of blackouts lessens, and the potential interest from teams looking to spread their base only helps the sport’s growth.
This makes so much sense that I am having a hard time accepting that Major League Baseball is actually doing it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I had to check the date to make sure it wasn't April 1st. MLB doing something for the fans? That's unpossible!

tHeMARksMiTh said...

Aw, now they do things for the fans. Like holding the World Series at 10 o'clock so everyone can see it. Like making the Home Run Derby 5 hours long. Like ...

Anonymous said...

Now I just wish they'd set it up so that when the Phils game isn't broadcast in HD by Comcast, but it's on ESPN in HD, they'll let me get the HD feed. THAT would make me happy.

Don't get me wrong, it's awful nice they're finally fixing an enormous problem that no doubt diminished baseball's popularity without providing any benefit.

Unknown said...

now they just need to do something about the saturday blackouts

Anonymous said...

does this mean I can now watch the Royals lose 90+ games a year?

The pain, the pain, please stop the pain. Make it go away.

So in other words, this is a Phyrric victory for us Royals fans?