That makes sense, but unless I'm missing something the RSNs would stand to make more if they would stream on YoutubeTV, hulu, sling, etc.
Oh wait, that's right. A lot of them already do. Except for MASN.
Agreed. It used to be about local attendance, but I think now its more about the crazy contracts that RSNs are paying to show games. They want to keep those subscribers.
....exactly. I'd pay more for MLB.tv because it would mean I am NOT PAYING FOR CABLE. I'd probably drop my YoutubeTV subscription and just pick it up again in the winter months to be able to watch football. I don't even watch that much espn anymore.
Yep. I tried to be positive, but most people are understandably upset.
I don't know who's responsible for the broadcasters--the O's or MASN--but it wasn't really handled well.
I don't necessarily think it's dumb. It's inconvenient for sure though. If you get rid of the blackout rules, you would remove a whole lot of the value to the MASN (or whatever RSN) relationship. Whatever money the O's get from MASN, I think that would go down quite a bit with local access to MLB.TV. I assume you'd have to then pay more for MLB.TV and things could get messy when divvying out royalties to individual teams.
I've never understood the blackout rules. Like back in the day, I think the thinking was "attendance is down, if we don't air the games on TV...people will come to the games."
Which might have worked in 1975. But if thats what they're thinking now, then...there's no way I'm leaving my cool, air conditioned house with all my food and snacks and a big comfy couch and a 65 inch tv to drive 2 hours and bake outside to watch this team play.
No. I'm going to use technology to figure out the answer to my problem. It's not my problem that MLB.tv hasn't figured out a way, apparently, to include in-market games in that package. I'd gladly pay more for MLB.tv each year if they did so.