MASN Continues to Reject In-Market Streaming

[bird watcher]

7 hours ago, Bradysburns said:

I literally TRIED to throw my cash at MLB.tv. They pumped up the whole "watch EVERY game!" thing, and they used to keep the "out of market" in the fine print. I had to threaten to sue them to get them to give me my money back! (I never do that.)

It astonishes me that anyone involved wouldn't want to take my money. Back in the day, you could watch on aerial TV, for free! Now they won't even let you pay them a fortune to watch... unless you live in Nebraska. 

Yeah, something's wrong with this system. 

Cable without MASN would lose a ton of subscribers who only have/feel they need cable to watch MASN. Cable needs MASN not to stream in market a la carte. MASN however, without cable, would lose tons of subscribers who don’t give a damn about MASN but have to pay the MASN premium to get the other channels they want.  MASN/MLB therefore can’t stream a la carte without killing cable. MLB/MASN obviously feel the loss of “non Oriole fans” subscriber fees would dwarf the gains in MLB tv subscribers they would gain from in market streaming.  Ratings would drop on MASN because casual fans likely wouldn’t pay extra just to stream the Orioles if it were its own line item in their budget.  It is frustrating. 

The Reddit route works but just isn’t as convenient nor as quick as just turning on MASN on cable. That said, I cut the cord last year and only watched sporadically on reddit streams and listened on the radio more. 

[Larry18]

8 hours ago, Bradysburns said:

I literally TRIED to throw my cash at MLB.tv. They pumped up the whole "watch EVERY game!" thing, and they used to keep the "out of market" in the fine print. I had to threaten to sue them to get them to give me my money back! (I never do that.)

It astonishes me that anyone involved wouldn't want to take my money. Back in the day, you could watch on aerial TV, for free! Now they won't even let you pay them a fortune to watch... unless you live in Nebraska. 

Yeah, something's wrong with this system. 

Mike Bates, who writes for SBN I believe, lives in Iowa and is blacked out by 6 teams or so. His Twitter bio lists him as living in Blackoutsville, Iowa. (@MikeBatesSBN). Iowa for crying out loud,

[atomic]

1 hour ago, bird watcher said:

Cable without MASN would lose a ton of subscribers who only have/feel they need cable to watch MASN. Cable needs MASN not to stream in market a la carte. MASN however, without cable, would lose tons of subscribers who don’t give a damn about MASN but have to pay the MASN premium to get the other channels they want.  MASN/MLB therefore can’t stream a la carte without killing cable. MLB/MASN obviously feel the loss of “non Oriole fans” subscriber fees would dwarf the gains in MLB tv subscribers they would gain from in market streaming.  Ratings would drop on MASN because casual fans likely wouldn’t pay extra just to stream the Orioles if it were its own line item in their budget.  It is frustrating. 

The Reddit route works but just isn’t as convenient nor as quick as just turning on MASN on cable. That said, I cut the cord last year and only watched sporadically on reddit streams and listened on the radio more. 

I think cable is just too expensive.  Baseball can stick to that model for short term gains but in the long run they will lose fans as less and less people get cable. It used to be most of away games were on free TV.   How will they attract new generations to become fans under their dying model?  

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, bird watcher said:

Cable without MASN would lose a ton of subscribers who only have/feel they need cable to watch MASN. Cable needs MASN not to stream in market a la carte. MASN however, without cable, would lose tons of subscribers who don’t give a damn about MASN but have to pay the MASN premium to get the other channels they want.  MASN/MLB therefore can’t stream a la carte without killing cable. MLB/MASN obviously feel the loss of “non Oriole fans” subscriber fees would dwarf the gains in MLB tv subscribers they would gain from in market streaming..  Ratings would drop on MASN because casual fans likely wouldn’t pay extra just to stream the Orioles if it were its own line item in their budget.  It is frustrating. 

To be clear, this is a MASN thing, not an MLB thing.   Fans of 27 of 30 teams have access to in-market streaming.    It’s only MASN’s two teams and the Dodgers that don’t allow it.   

[mdbdotcom]

14 minutes ago, Frobby said:

To be clear, this is a MASN thing, not an MLB thing.   Fans of 27 of 30 teams have access to in-market streaming.    It’s only MASN’s two teams and the Dodgers that don’t allow it.   

My understanding was that in-market streaming was available in those 27 markets only to cable subscribers, that you can't cut the cord and stream. Is that incorrect?

[Frobby]

39 minutes ago, mdbdotcom said:

My understanding was that in-market streaming was available in those 27 markets only to cable subscribers, that you can't cut the cord and stream. Is that incorrect?

I don’t know.    You may be right about that.  

[schittenden]

42 minutes ago, mdbdotcom said:

My understanding was that in-market streaming was available in those 27 markets only to cable subscribers, that you can't cut the cord and stream. Is that incorrect?

Which would be fine with me.  I pay a fortune to the cable company, being able to stream MASN in the background when I'm stuck at work would be great.

[Bradysburns]

14 hours ago, Larry18 said:

Mike Bates, who writes for SBN I believe, lives in Iowa and is blacked out by 6 teams or so. His Twitter bio lists him as living in Blackoutsville, Iowa. (@MikeBatesSBN). Iowa for crying out loud,

It's really a sham. They should just open up all the cross-territory stuff. It's such a relic of the old TV days. 

[notfast]

so has there been any change to this in 2018?

 

Any chance there is in market streaming this upcoming season?

[Ohfan67]

On 3/11/2018 at 9:50 AM, Frobby said:

I don’t know.    You may be right about that.  

He's correct. I live 90 miles from Houston and can not watch the Astros on MLB.tv. This is a MLB blackout thing. I find it incredibly frustrating, but I do understand the economics of protecting the value of the local sports channel deals. 

[Natsfan17]

On 3/11/2018 at 10:10 AM, mdbdotcom said:

My understanding was that in-market streaming was available in those 27 markets only to cable subscribers, that you can't cut the cord and stream. Is that incorrect?

That's true of allowing mlb.tv streaming.  The bigger deal for cord cutters at this point in time is that almost all sports channels aside from the Nats, Dodgers and Orioles are on one or several of the OTT providers (Sling, Youtube TV, Vue, DTV Now, etc).   Having that as an option would give us an above board solution starting at $20/month with no added fees or STB rentals.

Unlocator and mlb.tv single team option works pretty well though and doesn't route your traffic through a vpn.

[Frobby]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/dc-sports-bog/wp/2018/04/05/cord-cutters-still-cant-watch-nats-or-orioles-games-they-arent-happy-about-it/

[allquixotic]

I pay for both MASN (via Verizon FiOS, which came in July 2017, thank God - no way was I going to use Comcast) and MLB.TV streaming. I'd much prefer to stream through Apple TV than my somewhat flaky TV box. The TV remote always gets lost under piles of other stuff on my desk, and I can just interact with Apple TV on my iPhone.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get Unlocator to work on my Apple TV 4K. I think they might have plugged that loophole in the software with a patch, or maybe the recent iOS release plugged it. I could configure Unlocator alright in the settings, but the MLB app still told me I was blacked out.

I can still stream through my computer with a VPN, but eventually they'll probably require GPS on your computer too and plug that loophole.

MLB is really determined to enforce the cable blackout rules. It's a travesty.

[ReclaimTheCrown]

Just a quick public service announcement, and this obviously won't help local Oriole fans, but if you're a T-Mobile subscriber you can get free MLB.TV streaming.  It's usually made available right around opening day and you can sign up for a week-ish thereafter.

[atomic]

11 hours ago, allquixotic said:

I pay for both MASN (via Verizon FiOS, which came in July 2017, thank God - no way was I going to use Comcast) and MLB.TV streaming. I'd much prefer to stream through Apple TV than my somewhat flaky TV box. The TV remote always gets lost under piles of other stuff on my desk, and I can just interact with Apple TV on my iPhone.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get Unlocator to work on my Apple TV 4K. I think they might have plugged that loophole in the software with a patch, or maybe the recent iOS release plugged it. I could configure Unlocator alright in the settings, but the MLB app still told me I was blacked out.

I can still stream through my computer with a VPN, but eventually they'll probably require GPS on your computer too and plug that loophole.

MLB is really determined to enforce the cable blackout rules. It's a travesty.

They are just losing money.   Until they let me buy from them I will watch streams for free.