MLB.tv: You are some assholes of the highest order

The BBQ Pit
1

So my family cut the cable a few years ago, with mostly great results. We’re happy in every area of our lives, except when it comes to sports watching. This is a common complaint from people who get rid of cable, so I get it that we’re not unique flowers in this regard.

We miss watching Detroit Tigers baseball. For the past two years, we’ve not been able to watch the Tigers regularly.

This year we finally decided to subscribe to MLB.tv. But since we live in the Tigers’ home area, we are forced to watch the game on tape delay, three hours after the game ends. Fine, whatever. We knew what we were getting in to when we put out the $85 for the season.

So the Tigers open their season last night against Miami. I sequestered myself from all information for the past 12 or so hours. No local news, no Facebook, etc. We go to the MLB app a little while ago to get the game ready for a little lunch-time viewing.

Those rat bastards, right on the home screen, put the final score. I quickly avert my eyes and click to get off the screen. So the screen for the game pops up, and yet again, the final score is right there. And again I say, those rat bastards.

If I wanted a final fucking score, there are 20,001 places I could get it. When I fucking go to MLB.tv, there’s only one thing I want: To watch games. And if I’m watching a fucking game, why do I want to know how it fucking ends before I watch one fucking pitch?? You fucking morons.

This may be the first and last year they get my subscription money unless they change this. I already sent a strongly-worded email written in only natural light. And I included a very specific spoiler from The Force Awakens, just because.

2

Alrighty then, I just found out there’s a “Hide scores” setting. Why “Hide scores” isn’t the default setting, I don’t know.

But I suppose thissums things up for me.

3

$85? I paid $109.

4

Single team package vs. full package.

5

I have the NHL equivalent, and it’s the same way. As far as why it’s the default to show scores, they just probably assume most people are watching the games live, not on delay, so showing the scores isn’t ruining anything. I can understand your frustration of having the game ruined before you learned of this, but it kinda makes sense to me why it would default to showing current scores.

6

But while I’m here and bitching about MLB.tv: I don’t understand why I can’t get a live feed of the game when I pay my subscription. Play the local Fox Sports feed complete with commercials, and I don’t see what the problem is. Who is benefiting under this current blackout system? Only cable companies from what I can tell. MLB would probably get a ton more subscriptions if these blackout rules were lifted, and the network (usually the Fox Sports affiliate) would get a ton more eyes on their commercials.

7

The dipshit announcers did something just like this during the last Formula One race. Guy says, “If you haven’t seen the Indy car race in Phoenix, you might want to hit mute”, then proceeds to talk about the race for far longer than would be expected. There is no way they didn’t spoiler it for everyone.

How long did they expect people to stay on mute? :confused: Dumb-asses. Just sayin’.

Well, I guess it wasn’t “just like that”.

Nevermind.

8

Try living in Iowa. MLB allows SIX teams to claim the entire state of Iowa as a home market, which means ALL of those teams’ games are covered under blackout rules. So even if I were to shell out the $$$ for MLB.tv, I wouldn’t be able to see games involving Midwestern teams.

I mean, I can kinda understand why they don’t want to undercut local TV deals, but for the love of Pete - I guaran-damn-tee you there’s no place in Iowa that has local TV for the Cubs, White Sox, Brewers, Twins, Royals AND Cardinals. But the whole state gets blacked out for all six. (That also applies for regional ESPN games, too - should the Twins happen to get an ESPN game, you won’t see it in Iowa.) Rat bastards …

Around here you can find most Cub games and several White Sox games on various local TV channels … but if you’re a Royals or Cardinals or Twins fan, you’re pretty much screwed.

9

Take heart (well not right away though); the economic model that made it possible for those overpriced broadcasting deals (think SNLA, &c) is crumbling, and at some point we’ll be able to enjoy sports streaming unencumbered.

10

I bet those fuckers at MLB.tv told you that in their reply.

11

Here’s how you can get around the live viewing problem. Partner with someone in a different area and set up a slingbox with them.

12

Nope.

13

Yeah, I found “hide scores” setting early last year, that’s been arguably the finest feature of this app.

14

Mostly because the biggest source of income each of the local teams receive is their TV deals. There is no way they are going to stop that. Most MLB games are on the local networks that each team has negotiated, rather than one MLB negotiated TV deal.

15

But there are websites that you can view every sport for free.

Why don’t you use them?

16

Well, cuz the quality usually sucks, it’s illegal and I don’t want to watch every game on my laptop.

17

I still don’t understand why local networks wouldn’t want to loosen things up to get more eyeballs on their commercials. I’m willing to pay money to watch their commercials-- but I’m not going to pay over a thousand dollars a year to get cable when all I want is Tiger baseball. They could get a cut of subscription money PLUS get a bump in eyeballs watching their telecast.

18

I gave upon the tv broadcast for that reason and just have the radio broadcasts now.

19

Promoting cable tends to make them more money overall due to subscriber fees that they get regardless of whether the subscriber to the tier they are on actually watches them or not. It’s why most, if not all, cable networks are very wary of selling individual streaming right (they’ve only recently started on services like Sling TV or Playstation Vue, and even there there is a bundle involved).

20

See, I get that, and it makes a modicum of sense - although like Happy says, why couldn’t they allow viewers to stream their network telecast ads and all? - but for a state blacked out by six teams, it doesn’t make sense at all.

As far as I know, I can’t sign up for the local networks that carry the Brewers, Twins, Royals or Cardinals. Maybe that’s not correct, and if I changed cable providers and paid through the nose for three additional sports tiers, I could get (some of) them. But it’s not clear or obvious that actually works in my part of Iowa.

I can get all the Cub and White Sox games I want on my cable provider (the number I want, actually, is pretty darn low, but that’s beside the point). I wouldn’t gripe too much if those two were the only ones blacked out. It’s blacking out the entire state for all six that just seems … lazy? Greedy? Both?