Flipping around last night I see the Mets Braves game is blacked out because there’s an obnoxious message telling me so. My girlfriend asked some questions but I wasn’t too sure of what I was talking about to I tried to do a little research. I found a bunch of places that made my eyes glaze over so if anyone can explain in layman terms, it would be a big help.
I had always assumed that a game was blacked out in the local market if it hadn’t sold out, but this doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems like if two networks are carrying the same game, (why can’t networks coordinate who plays what games in advance?) the national network blacks it out locally, and the local network blacks it out nationally. Ok that might make a tiny bit of sense, but why do they leave a message up that it was blacked out? I bet the TV is killing itself over the 2 1/2 hours of dead air. Couldn’t they run alternate programming and make an announcement (think a weather warning type crawl) every few minutes?
It’s because Major League Baseball is going out of its way to chap my ass.
Actually, it’s more because a bunch of teams have negotiated their own broadcasting contracts, which require require broadcasters to black out games for a variety of reasons.
Tickets sales and network conflicts (which you mentioned) are usually the primary drivers.
I don’t know the deal with the Mets, but I’m a Red Sox fan, so I’ll complain about them. I hate NESN. The Sawks have a contract with these pirates that virtually ensures that I’ll never see a game. The only exceptions are when a league contract overrides the team contract, like on Sunday night when the opener was shown on ESPN, or when they happen to be playing the Yankees and I can watch the Yankees’ broadcast.
Basically, you can’t watch the game because somebody is making more money that way.
You ask a simple question with a lot of different answers. I’m sure someone will come along and straighten up the threads I’m about to unravel.
Baseball has two separate TV contracts – a national contract that all major league teams are equal partners in, and the local contracts that each negotiates separately. This is different from the NFL, where the league negotiates a single contract (and where the rules are clear about the game not being carried in the local market if it doesn’t sell out – the same rule, btw, states that the game MUST be carried in the visiting team’s market. Neither one of those are iron-clad with baseball or other sports.)
In most (but not all) circumstances, the local contract actually takes precedence over the national contract. If your local station is set to carry a game, and ESPN decides to carry it as well, then ESPN can’t show the game within a set distance (I think it’s either 50 or 75 miles) of your city. The visiting team has a similar arrangement to broadcast the game back to their city. Once you get past that limit, individual cable systems are usually free to carry both versions, unless they have a contract that favors one source over the other, as well.
As to why the networks don’t run alternative programs, there’s generally no point in doing it. The worst deal they can get is that the game is blacked out in both the home and visiting team’s cities. If you’re ESPN, it’s not worth coming up with program alternatives for cable subscribers in two cities.
As to why the various parties can’t coordinate their schedules? Well, Fox and ESPN (the two national networks) do. As a rule Fox carries games on the weekend and ESPN carries them during the week. The local contracts also set up the games to be carried before the season starts. But the local networks aren’t bound by any decision Fox or ESPN makes, and in fact all three usually have the right to add even more games if they want to (a hot pennant race, say.)
In fact, the networks are negotating with the NFL to have more flexibility in scheduling the big, important, end-of-season games into the choice time slots. Currently, those games are scheduled into those slots in advance.
Why was the game blacked out in New York? I was watching the game here in Atlanta last night on TBS 17. It was a local game and wasn’t sold out. Last year I never saw a Braves game that was blacked out.
Why would the game be on TV here in the home teams market, yet blacked out in the visiting teams?
Oh, and was it blacked out on TBS or on a local chanel up there?
MLB has no blackout rule regarding ticket sales. The NFL does.
In my market, the local station(s), Fox Sports Net and ESPN all have contracts to broadcast the local baseball team. Still, not all of the home or away games are televised.
As posted above, the reasons are complicated & varied. I know of cases where the network is broadcasting the game, but has not paid MLB the rights to televise it in a particular market. Further complicating it is that the rules are based on local broadcast definitions. Most viewers have cable(or satellite) and therefore access to out of market local stations and non-broadcast networks that are obligated to enforce MLB’s broadcast rules.
I’m not in your market, so I don’t know the specifics of your dillema.
TBS has a contract to broadcast the Braves. If the Braves are playing the Mets, then whoever has the rights to the Mets games in New York, can override the coverage by the Braves network.
Was the Mets game being broadcast by the Mets network? Was it on pay-per-view? Either one of them could cause the Braves network coverage to be blacked out. Or perhaps the Mets network has a contract with the cable system that says no Mets games unless they come from the Mets network or a nationally broadcast game.