Back In Black
Our friends at Baseball Primer point to this Yahoo story on MLB.TV's idiotic blackout rules. It turns out that we're not the most aggrieved; fans in Iowa are.
It's an interesting article, but it makes one HUGE mistake. The blackout rules aren't in place to protect ticket sales, but advertising dollars. They want you watching your local sports network (ie MASN) so that the ratings go up and advertisers pay 'em more cash.
Most interesting is this graphic, which shows which areas are blacked out from which games. You can see that Iowa is completely screwed. And you've gotta feel bad for baseball fans in Charlotte. They're really getting fecked.
UPDATE: As DM points out in the comments, he's written an excellent post on this issue, wondering what the cost would be for MLB to allow people to buy their way out of the blackout -- IOW, how much does the local broadcaster collect from you? The answer is surprisingly high.
It's an interesting article, but it makes one HUGE mistake. The blackout rules aren't in place to protect ticket sales, but advertising dollars. They want you watching your local sports network (ie MASN) so that the ratings go up and advertisers pay 'em more cash.
Most interesting is this graphic, which shows which areas are blacked out from which games. You can see that Iowa is completely screwed. And you've gotta feel bad for baseball fans in Charlotte. They're really getting fecked.
posted by Chris Needham at
9:59 AM
7 Comments:
Thanks for the link. The interesting question to me is why I'm not allowed to pay extra to avoid the blackout. This story have given me the excuse to finally publish a post exploring that issue.
And yes, I know this is a blatant blog pimp.
By
DM, at 6/20/2006 11:28 AM
Yeah, it's a different black-out rule that protects ticket-sales and I don't even know if that applies in MLB (I know it does in football).
The official text: "Blackouts protect the local rightsholders who arrange separate distribution agreements with the teams for their exclusive territories."
I have a suspicision that Extra Innings doesn't work the same way as MLB.tv, but I haven't been able to prove it just yet.
By
El Gran Color Naranja, at 6/20/2006 11:39 AM
The "protect ticket sales" blackout is the Sport Exclusivity rule in U.S. communications law, passed in the early 60s at the behest of the NFL, largely, though applicable to all sports.
I wonder if Extra Innings has the same Zip Code list. Ultimately it is irrelevant because with DirecTV you are probably getting the local cable\TV games (unless you live in Philly or San Diego, where the local cable outlet is not on DirecTV)
By
DM, at 6/20/2006 2:16 PM
I vaguely (and someone can correct me on this) remember that Extra Innings only blacks out home broadcasts of local teams.
By
Chris Needham, at 6/20/2006 2:17 PM
I live in the LA area and the only teams blacked out on Extra Innings are the Dodgers and Angels, but that would be the same for MLB.tv.
By
Bob Timmermann, at 6/20/2006 2:59 PM
Mine matches the mlb.tv list, but I've heard that over in the Charlotte area they only get the Braves blacked out. Of course this is all ugly rumor. I can't find an extra innings specific zip code list.
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