I live in what might be the only city in the country that I can not legally watch Philadelphia Phillies baseball games. All internet streaming Phillies broadcasts are blacked out and the vast majority of regular season games are not shown on television. Being a lifelong Phillies fan, this disturbs me. The reasons for it reveal the sad state of Major League Baseball’s blackout policy.
I live in Carlisle, PA, a city that lies in central Pennsylvania and has a population of around 20,000. It has no major or minor league sports teams of its own, but lies at a crossroads between a number of major sports cities. It is around two hours from Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington D.C., and about three hours from Pittsburgh. Because of its unique location it is considered the home market of every baseball team from all four of those cities.
Home markets in Major League Baseball are drawn according to a geographic area surrounding the city. However, these areas are not exclusive, and certain areas overlap, so that you can have a city that has multiple home markets, such as Carlisle. The area these markets are drawn is ideally supposed to be the same area that gets the local television broadcasts of the team. Thus, if you live in the home market of any team, you should be able to get all their regular season games on your television.
However, that is merely the ‘ideal’ way home markets should work, and they many times break down. In Carlisle, while it is technically a home market for the Philadelphia Phillies, almost none of their regular season broadcasts are shown here. In most areas of the Phillies home market, games are shown on the Philadelphia Comcast Sportsnet channel, however, in Carlisle we get the bizarro Mid-Atlantic Comcast Sportsnet channel which doesn’t show any Phillies games and mostly concentrates on Washington and Baltimore sports.
However, not getting a team’s local broadcasts on television is not usually the worst thing, because you should then be able to see the games on either the MLB Extra Innings or MLB.tv packages. A number of years ago MLB created these packages as a way for people to watch ‘out of market’ games that they wouldn’t normally be able to see. They opened this up to being able to watch it through your cable package, or on your computer/iPhone/iPad, etc… Thus, in theory one should at all times be able to watch every single MLB broadcast, either the home market local broadcasts on regular television, or the out of market broadcasts through the packages.
However, the MLB’s labyrinth of blackout rules ruins this ideal set up. Both the MLB Extra Innings and MLB.tv packages blackout all games of teams that are part of your home market. This supposedly is meant to protect local television affiliates from having viewers taken away who watch through the package… although the package usually broadcasts the same feed as the local channel. That’s where I enter a no-man’s land by living in Carlisle, PA. For some unknown reason, Carlisle is designated as a home market for the Phillies, blacking out all their games, even though almost none of their regular season games are shown on local television here.1
Thus, as long as I am standing in Carlisle, PA, I can’t watch Phillies broadcasts. However, if I go a half hour to the west in Chambersburg, PA, Phillies games are not shown on television, but also are not blacked out in the packages. If I go a half hour to the east in Harrisburg, PA, Phillies games are blacked out in the packages, but shown on local television. Therefore, this tiny strip of land in Central PA is the only spot in the entire country that one can not legally watch Phillies games. It is purgatory for a Phillies fan.
Now, I realize I’m more of a fringe case here in Carlisle, however, the blackout rules cause chaos in many other parts of the country. There are similar blackout issues in Iowa, North Carolina, and Connecticut. Additionally, Las Vegas is considered the home market for every baseball team in California and Arizona, six in all, notwithstanding the fact Las Vegas isn’t in California or Arizona. All this leads to a mismatch of markets and blackout rules that frustrates many fans.2
Even if you disregard these absurd examples, I think there’s a deeper problem with blackout rules in general. The fact MLB has created this infrastructure to watch games on portable digital devices, such as smart phones and tablets, shows they see this as the future of watching sports. However, the only games one can watch on those devices are out of market games. This is a huge problem because I assume most people root for their local teams, and thus, the vast majority of people can not watch their local teams on portable devices and are stuck having to watch them on traditional television.
This problem could be easily fixed if the MLB simply did away with local blackout rules. Instead, when you signed up for the Extra Innings or MLB.tv packages you would get every single game, no matter where you were. This would obviously benefit consumers, as they could now watch their local teams everywhere, even when they are away from their television. It would also benefit the MLB, as I’m sure it would drive up the number of subscribers to the packages. I would even argue it would benefit local broadcasters, as their broadcasts are the ones actually shown through the packages, so having more people watching their broadcasts should only help them.3
The only party I think this might harm would be cable providers, as it might lead to a number of people cutting the cord and getting rid of cable all together. Maybe that it the true force keeping these byzantine blackout rules on the books, as I don’t see any other reason to continue to have them. I hope MLB addresses this absurd situation and eliminates blackout rules and fully embraces the future of sports broadcasting.
1. An occasional Phillies game is shown on the local CW channel, mostly Sunday afternoon games. In addition, games the Phillies play between Washington, Baltimore, or Pittsburgh teams are shown. However, most nationally broadcast Phillies games on ESPN are blacked out on both ESPN and the packages, which makes little sense to me.
↩
2. This is not exclusive to just the MLB, as the NFL, NBA, and NHL have similar blackout issues in regards to their out of market packages. The NFL also has an additional blackout rule that a game will not be shown locally if the stadium is not sold out, however that rule doesn’t apply to other leagues’ games.↩
3. There is the issue that the actual local broadcasts’ commercials are not shown in the packages, although I would assume that could be changed so you simply would watch local commercials along with the broadcast. ↩
VintageZen 
Yep, they are super dumb…I am in SLC, UT and am a dbacks fan. But because St. George, UT (almost 250 miles south) get Fox Sports AZ which broadcasts dbacks games the whole state is blacked out. Up in SLC we get Fox Sports CO which broadcasts Rockies games, yet they are blacked out in St. George. Frustrating…but I am a baseball fan in general so I keep purchasing because I will watch almost any game.
Sort of in the same boat. I’m an Oakland A’s fan living in Sacramento. Unless you have cable tv, the only times you are able to watch the Oakland A’s on over the air local tv is when they are playing the San Francisco Giants. I would have purchased the MLB internet package if I could watch my A’s live on my tablet but black out rules apply. I hated the idea of getting cable just for baseball. Finally picked it up this season however because I couldn’t resist GoT.
Agree 100%; MLB Blackout rules are antiquated relics from another time. Just leave the local affiliate’s commercials in the stream, and then why should they care if I’m streaming to my iPhone instead of sitting in front of my TV? One of the reasons I dropped my MLB.tv this year.In your case, Linus, I suspect that it is those occasional games on the CW that cause you to be in blackoutland. As you know, the same crew that broadcasts the Phillies games on CSN do the games on the CW (as bad as they are; boy do I miss HK); I suspect that it’s all part of a single tv contract with MLB. The real problem is that you don’t get the Philly version of CSN. I’m in northern Delaware, and I get both the Philly CSN and the crappy Balt-Wash CSN too. Sounds like you need to start bugging Comcast to give you both. I’ve heard that they monitor and respond to @comcastcares on Twitter. Also, try emailing wecanhelp@cable.comcast.com. Apparently it’s the office of the president or something. I sent them an email about a billing issue; I got a an email back within 24 hours fixing the issue, plus a credit for some free pay per view, and three voicemails over the next week from the same lady at Comcast, who really seemed to want to be sure I was happy. Your issue is different, but it’s worth a shot.
looks like your comment system uses markdown or similar. The Comcast email address is we-can-help, replacing – with _ (underscore).
I’d like to see them add per team/league/division subscriptions for a cheaper price than you have to pay for all the teams, as there’s really no way on Earth one could watch every team play every game. Plus, there are only a few teams I want to monitor regularly like my home teams division opponents.
I think every consumer wants to be able to pay for only what you want to watch. But content providers will always provide "packages" for a larger total cost. They want you "paying" for stuff you don’t watch!
Good plan I suppose. I mean it really isn’t that expensive to buy all the teams. Though, I’m not "paying" them anything currently. If they offered "packages" the way I want. Then they would be making money from me. :-|
Yeah, I live in LA. I think what happened to me is that I got interested in it the first year I watched the playoffs, the first year that the Giants won it all. I swear, they let me buy late in the season, and I saw it all, usually hanging on to my treadmill. It was great! I bought it from the beginning of the year the next time, but I hadn’t really realized how stupid the rules were. I know, it’s to protect the profits of the cables, etc. But look; I’m working late, I’m away from TV. THAT’S what I bought this for! Watching a night game in snatches when you’re not at home is great! When you get home, if the game’s on TV, what do you do? Watch it on TV! Doing what’s right for the fans is what any sport should do.
No one has remarked on the infuriating situation for MLB.tv subscribers in Canada, so I’ll help fill in the map above. It’s pretty simple:The home market for the Toronto Blue Jays is the entire country, from coast to coast. Living in Vancouver, thousands of miles from Toronto, subscribers can’t tune in to watch the Jays. It’s a laughably absurd situation, but I can’t see it changing until broadcast rights are renegotiated.
I live in an area where there is no major league team but 4 of them are blacked out. (it was 5 but Boston (450+ miles away) is no longer listed as blacked out)Blacked out are – Cleveland – 200+ miles awayPittsburgh – 200+ miles awayYankees – 400 miles awayMets – 400 miles awayCleveland and Pittsburgh are not shown on TV, Yankees are on a cable channel and I have no clue on the mets.,I have called MLB.tv to complain for the last few years and simply accept the fact they do not want my money.It’s simply greed.
I am a Dodgers fan living in Lancaster PA. Perfect right? Nope. We have the same four blackouts you do in Carlisle, meaning that I can only watch 22 of the 30 teams playing on a given day, and if the dodgers are playing the nearby teams I’m hosed. When I lived in LA every game was on tv so I never noticed, but here? I get blocked all the time. Although I have dish network, I haven’t seen a single baseball game on it. I have never seen the Phillies listed on any channel. I’ve given up trying. I’ve been a baseball fan my entire life, but my interest is waning because I can’t watch games anymore. And this is WITH paying the annual subscription. I will not renew, it’s stupid to pay for this with all the blackouts. Joel
I’m a Brewers fan in Milwaukee and have been a subscriber to MLB’s radio service for the last year and a half. I’d like to say I’m an idea fan, in that I not only caught almost every Brewers game via the radio last year, I also tuned in to watch a variety of other games when they weren’t playing.I had considered going for the TV this year but stopped when I saw the blackout rules would continue to apply to me. I don’t understand what benefit it is to me to pay and not be able to watch MY team. There’s absolutely no value in that. I don’t have a cable package (nor intend to have one- I’m one of those young cord cutters) and MLB.tv is losing out on having me as a paying subscriber in that sense.If they’re willing to let go of the blackouts, I’d probably sign up in an instant. But if that’s not an option, than the MLB.tv service won’t be one for me. I’ll stick with listening to Uecker.
I am a Red Sox fan that lives in Hillsborough NC. I can watch every game UNLESS they play Baltimore. Baltimore is in Maryland – two states away. It takes five and half hours to drive to Baltimore to see a game – so we are not talking commuting distance. If you live in Carlisle, PA you are closer to Baltimore than I am. There are also very few Baltimore fans here. I would guess the area is mostly Red Sox and Yankees fans – although a growing number of Rays fans because the Bulls play in Durham. I think they just need a blackout in every square inch of the US. Flip a coin and decide which team is closest.
I got around all this one year by jailbreaking my iPhone and spoofing it. I set the phone so that MLB thought I was watching in London, England. Then, I ported the picture to my television, which wasn’t half bad. Problem solved. But then the following year, MLB upped the prices from $25/season for mobile devices to the current $25/month period, which as far as I’m concerned, is ridiculous. So, now I go to wiziwig.tv and watch there. The picture isn’t the best, and the feed sometimes breaks, but I’m saving $150. We cut the cable cord in 2009, and I am not going back.
Yep, I’m a Twins fan living in Iowa and while Dish Network will show games for the Cubs, White Sox, Royals, and Brewers we get the Twins and Cardinals blacked out. At least I can watch when they play their division mates (the Royals and White Sox) but it’s still unreasonably frustrating.
I’ve always though there should be two packes – one that includes everythign (including your ‘home’ games) and one that only includes no-market game. The former would obviously cost more, with portion of the extra fee going to the local broadcaster.
Agreed. Totally sucks and MLB is missing out on my subscription as well. The kids watch stuff on Nick and we watch the Red Sox on NESN. If we could get those two channels separately we could cut the cable. But instead we have to pay an obscene amount of money to support a load of CRAP on tons of unwatched cable channels. The cable industry is ripe for disruption. It’s only a matter of time.
Alright the last time I watched a baseball game was right before the strike in ’94, but couldn’t you get around this with a simple VPN? MLB.tv doesn’t need to know your location.
It’s gotta be driven by local providers, and not MLB. MLB has to know their viewership suffers because of the crazy blackout rules. To incent local providers to allow MLB to include ALL games in their packages, I imagine local providers would demand payment that would cause the MLB subscription fees to go up by at least 100%.
rays fan in jacksonville, fl….was excited last year to see that a rays game in toronto that wasn’t being covered by local television was set to by the mlb.tv free game of the day, only to see that we were still covered by the blackout, even though the only available feed was toronto’s home feed. when fox goes regional on saturdays, jacksonville always gets the braves game, even though atlanta is 5 hours away vs. st pete being 3.5 hours away. of course, the rays game is blacked out.
There is no local affiliate airing Braves games in Atlanta. They only broadcast on Fox Sports South and Sports South on cable. I don’t subscribe to cable and have no intentions of ever doing so again. I would pay MLB directly to watch Braves games. The only publicly accessible Braves games broadcasts are on the radio.Joe
The whole blackout thing pisses me off. I live in San Diego, and I subscribe to mlb.tv to watch the LA Dodgers. When the Dodgers are playing the Padres, I can’t stream the games THAT I PAID MONEY FOR.As if that weren’t infurating enough, it gets better. Time Warner Cable in San Diego has decided to have a hissy fit and refuse to pay money to carry Fox Sports SD to air the Padres games, which (surprise) charges more money than the local channel that used to carry the games. FSSD says DirectTV, Dish, Cox, and other regional providers pay the same rate they’re asking from TWC. TWC: waaah It’s still more than we used to pay. We don’t care if the new rate is market competitive. waaah I know, let’s punish our locked-in neighborhood subscribers. Fuck em.So this means that every time the Padres play the Dodgers, not only am I blacked out on mlb.tv (which I pay money for), I’m also unable to watch the games on my cable tv (which I pay money for). And because they’re both in the NL west, they play each other a lot, and I am thus missing a lot of the Dodgers season. (Which I have paid money to both mlb.tv and TWC (for the internet to use mlb.tv) to watch.)MLB could fix this entire problem by letting mlb.tv stream all the games. It’s a paid service. There is no justifiable reason to black out the games, other than to be hostile to subscribers.
I’m with you — I’d love to watch some Penguins hockey from the comfort of my own home (17007). No dice.
I have MLB.tv and iPad, iPhone, Mac, but I don’t have a TV. The way the world moves today, watching 150+ 34 hour games requires a mobile device it’s not optional.The blackouts are just one more way that MLB tries to stop us from being baseball fans. At the very least, the blackouts encourage you to follow the big out-of-market teams. Be a Yankees fan even though you don’t live in New York and you are golden with MLB.tv.What they need to do is instead of blacking a viewer out, get them the local ads in the stream.The thing that maybe bugs me the most is the blackouts are much longer than the games. A game that went from 7:0010:00 will be blacked out until after midnight. If I can’t watch until 10:30 it is really brutal to be blacked out when the archive stream is right there. At the very least, the archive streams should not be subject to blackout.
The situation in San Diego is not much better than anywhere else. I’m a Giants fan, so I’ve got mlb.tv to see most of the games. That works great. However, Giants / Padres is blacked out as expected. Unfortunately, I get no Padres games on cable because of the dispute between Fox and Time Warner. Roughly 50% of San Diego can’t even get the Padres local cable TV broadcast because Fox and Time Warner can’t make a deal. The other half of the area gets Cox cable which does have Fox Sports San Diego and the Padres. This has been going on since the beginning of the 2012 season once the old TV contract expired. I’m not going to get DishTV just to watch the occasional Padres/Giants game!MLB needs to get this figured out before people loose interest in baseball entirely. If you can’t see your local team on TV on a regular basis, it is very, very hard to be a fan.
I agree the rules are stupid. As a Dodgers fan living in LA I do get to see all the games, but it annoys me that I have to pay TWC $50/month for the privilege. I’ve talked to some local broadcasters about this exact issue, and I can tell you this is ALL driven by cable companies. People are cutting the cord and live television is the last hope these providers have of staving off the DVR invasion. Because people don’t want to watch sports or awards shows on tape delay (most people anyway).So these cable companies are paying gobs of money to acquire the broadcasting rights, which is only so valuable because of the blackout restrictions that they have agreed to with MLB which keep customers paying their monthly bills. And while that all sounds like a big pile of "fuck you" to the fans, we should also remember that cable deals are big reasons why many teams are getting huge cash influxes. All those new media deals and the Dodgers’ recent spending spree are paid for by cable money. And with MLB revenue sharing, even the small market teams see some of that benefit.I’m not trying to argue that we should embrace these blackouts wholeheartedly (especially here in LA where the market is big enough to support a high-salaried team even without the cable revenues), but it’s important to know the entire picture, and the fact is that these companies are the reason so many teams can afford some marquee players.Of course the downside is that baseball salaries are increasing at a dizzying pace, which most people would agree is not in the best interests of the sport.Personally I would love for MLB to get rid of the blackouts, and make MLB.tv available direct to consumers as well as through the cable companies. Even if they TRIPLED the cost of the service to $390/year, it’s still a great deal compared to paying your cable company $600/year (at the very least) for the same privilege.
They should change the rules to allow you to watch any game in the package that is not being shown on local television.
An AWS account can help get around this. Set up an EC2 instance and connect via the proxy settings in Firefox. I’ve done this 2 years in a row with no issues. I connect my MBP to my TV and the picture quality is just fine.
Also in LA and a Dodgers fan. I use Tunnel Bear to Proxy into Canada and start the stream, then after a minute or so I can turn the proxy off and the stream will continue without rechecking the blackout status. This works with my Mac and airplay to my TV. Last year it also worked with my iPad if I had location services turned off, but this year they require that location services is turned on. It is a really frustrating situation.
MLB has managed to completely solve the blackout issue when it comes to their "Gameday Audio" radio package. It’s audio only, but you get EVERY regular season game, EVERY post-season game, with home & away coverage, and NO BLACKOUTS. It just works. No complaints whatsoever. So for listening to baseball, I recommend MLB Gameday Audio without hesitation. But I won’t buy mlb.tv in its present form.
I would be willing to pay more for my MLB.tv subscription to get around the blackout issue. The current rules are truly antiquated, especially in the light of MLBAM’s streaming capabilities.As for my own personal blackout hell:Houston Astros fan (yeah, we still exist) are extra screwed this yeah, as Astros games are only on CSN now and Comcast cable is only available as a choice in about half the Houston area. AFAIK, Comcast covers about 0% of Astros territory outside Houston. So, like you, folks in central Texas (Austin) where I live are also basically locked out for the entire season. This is especially bad for a team that really needs to keep its fan-base going during the "epic rebuild of ultimate justice" (read as: losing lots of games–many in an ugly fashion) current underway.
I live in Las Vegas, NV and have followed The Yankees for 50 years. LV is blackout hell. If they play in CA, and my DISH does not carry the CA station, or the station does not broadcast a game, I am SOL. Also when MLB TV broadcasts an Angels game, I am blacked out as well. MLB TV blacks out it’s own games on it’s own cable network. I swear the place is run by Einstein wannabes, or a recent grad of a Business School that thinks LaCrosse is the only sport worth watching.Yet every year I shell out my $100+ dollars for the right to be insulted, blacked out and only see a partial season. RICO where are you when needed?
(Agree with all the statements made)….and since the rules wont allow you to legitimately watch games theres always (XBMC with the XMBC addon (to get SportsDevil)) to watch anything you want anywhere (with a certain amount of futzing around admittadely, If you ‘locate’ a ATV version ‘2’ you can get this going and watch anything and use the ATV remote from your couch.Do this & take a picture and send it to MLB with a letter telling them you ‘want to be legit but cant because of their policies’ and mention they are losing money in the process. Just my 2 cents from another frustrated cable-sports viewer…
I am a Cubs fan living in Indianapolis. The Reds are the "home team" shown on local TV, but since Indy is close-ish to Chicago, the Cubs (and White Sox) are blacked out. Luckily, WGN fills some of the gaps, but it is not enough. Haven’t we Cubs fans suffered enough?
You should get CSN as well there.
I’ve had terrible times with these blackouts, due to a similar problem – all because of the Phillies.I’m a Mets fan and I live 30 miles from Philadelphia and 60 miles from Baltimore. When I was with DirecTV, I had the MLB pack and the sports pack ( the regional sports networks). Every customer was assigned a "local" regional. When an MLB game was on, it would be blacked out on all of the regionals except the local one – unless you had the MLB pack, then it would show on both. The one shown on your local would be blacked on on the package. So, all games would show on both channels EXCEPT any game labelled as local – that one would only show on the regional.My problem is that I live in a spot that has two local regionals. You would think that would be nice, but not so much.Theoretically, this would mean I would see all the Nationals, Orioles, and Phillies games – even without the package. But the problem was that DirecTV did not carry the Philadelphia network. So, when the Mets played the Phillies it would be blacked out for me on the package and not available on DirecTV. That’s bad enough, but the Phillies games would also be blacked out when they were playing the Nationals or the Orioles – even on the regional network ( which is considered my local one ).I called almost every game and fought about it. DTV blamed it on Comcast or MLB every time. I sent letters to DirecTV, the Mets, Comcast, and to MLB. Nobody seemed to understand how silly it all was. I dropped DirecTV so the situation is a little better, but sometimes a game is inexplicably unavailable. I’ll be at CitiField tomorrow for the game, so no blackout this time. It’s not just baseball, though. The NBA rules really bothered me when we lived in Florida. At that time, it was state based. Every game in Florida was blacked out on the package. I tried to explain to DirecTV that I was closer to Atlanta than Miami, yet I could watch the Hawks – but not the Heat ( presumably these rules are to encourage local TV and/or attendance at games ). Doesn’t make any sense.
I couldn’t agree with you more. I live in blackout Hell.. Southeastern Wisconsin, as the Chicago White Sox fan, surrounded by three major league baseball teams, I can see none of the games with my MLB premium package.There is no way to sign me a local team. So consequently, I am blacked out from all telecasts.My only consolation is replaying later.I think committed to my darndest to cancel my subscription.
Get directv and OTA.The Brat Stop has that and only blackouts there are bulls games on CSN or CSN + or CSN + 2
I have the answer to your problem, in three letters…V-P-N. I use the VyprVPN service through Giganews, and they have servers all over the world. I like to watch the CBC’s coverage of hockey and other things, but their video feeds are blacked out outside of Canada. So I connect to the VyprVPN server in Toronto, and voila! CBC thinks I’m in Toronto and I get all their programming that is streamed online. You should be able to do the same with the online MLB package. Just connect to a VPN server that is outside the Phillies blackout area.
I live in Delaware, so while I only get Phillies games on cable, I’m blacked out from getting both Washington and Baltimore games. No big deal since I’m a Red Sox fan, unless they’re playing the Orioles or Nationals, of course.
I have a similar problem to the Linus. I live in central CA and am a Giants fan. I am blacked out of Dodgers, Giants, Angels, and A’s. I have southern CA regional networks. Watching a Giants game is nearly impossible. I am blacked out on MLB.tv and ESPN. I can watch Giants occasionally when they play the Dodgers (only when its broadcast on their PRIME network) and when the Giants play the Cubs (WGN) or Braves (TBS) and it is being shown nationally. If I drive an hour north I would get Northern CA regional channels and if I drive 30 min south I am out of the Giants coverage area and could get the games. I am stuck finding bootleg streams of the game online and the quality is questionable at best.
We live in central arkansas and are blacked out of rangers, Astros, cardinals and royals games. We can get the Texas games when they are on fxsw. However we have no access to the other twos games on cox or Comcast. Even better I didn’t know that mlbtv was essentially a weekday app. My bad not reading the fine print. BUT our friends with MLB on direct tv don’t have this problem. Not too hard to figure out where to go next year. The problem of our "home team" padres starting so late can only be solved by becoming night owls or moving
Shelton, Connecticut is another black hole for Red Sox fans. Shelton is in Fairfield County, which belongs to NY apparently. Therefore, NESN is not available. However, Shelton is also somehow in the Boston market as well, so any non-nationally (even MLB Extra Innings) televised games are blacked out. Terribly frustrating.
Same here in Arkansas. No Cards, Royals, Rangers or Astros. I’m an Angels fan thus this "shouldn’t" affect me much, but now with the ‘Stros in the A.L. (west, to boot), there goes approximately 44 games a year. Luckily I’m only ~3 hours from KC so I go to a game or two a year. This MLB blackout policy is terrible for consumers.
I bought this as a gift for my husband because I canceled cable (long story) and felt bad that he couldn’t watch the Royals – our local team. But he can’t watch them with MLB.TV! What a waste and what a bunch of greedy people at MLB. We can’t afford to go to the games all the time. I would rather see the games at the stadium because I love the "feel" of being at the stadium but it’s just unrealistic for us. Now I’m not sure I want to spend any of my disposable income on "America’s game".