MLB Extra innings question

MLB TV’s blackout rules are shite. I recently learned that all California teams are blacked out in Hawaii. I mean WTF?

Yes, they're making it hard to know what to buy

VPN does work on this, MLB.tv + VPN is how I watch the Astros every night with no issues

Cool

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you can't stream the Cardinals without a cable package that carries Bally's Midwest.

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Be sure to check on how long the Bally Sports contract is with the Cardinals. I'm hearing they may not renew some of their contract with MLB teams.

Here's a 2023 article about Bally only planning to broadcast the 2024 season for some teams. It's on.cnet.com

Bally didn't show all of the Pelicans games this season. Part of the way thru this past season they moved some games to The CW here in North Louisiana. The games that got shown there weren't HD and I had no control of the aspect ratio. The left side of the picture was cut off where all you could see was the score for the visiting team at the bottom.

It looked like this:
15 Pelicans 25

You couldn't see all of that area where above where Los Angeles was supposed to be. I did a free trial of NBA League pass to watch one game.

Here's a March of 2024 cnet article about the subject

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MLB 2024: How to Watch, Stream Baseball This Season Without Cable

The boys of summer are back, but the way you watch your favorite team may soon change. Here's what you need to know.

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There has been a great upheaval in the past year with the regional sports networks that broadcast MLB games locally. The biggest two RSN networks are in tatters or gone altogether. Diamond Sports Group, owner of Bally Sports, is currently in bankruptcy proceedings, and Warner Bros. Discovery has sold off or shut down all of its AT&T SportsNet RSNs.

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What's going on with the Bally Sports RSNs?

Bally Sports owner Diamond Sports Group filed for bankruptcy right before the 2023 season started and announced earlier this year that it received a $115 million investment from Amazon. The bankruptcy process is still ongoing, but Diamond reached a deal with creditors so it can continue operations through the 2024 MLB season.

Bally Sports airs games in the home markets for 12 MLB teams: the Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers.

It's expected that any change to the Bally Sports RSNs for each of these teams won't happen until after the 2024 season. What happens next year is anyone's guess, but with Amazon's involvement, signs point toward Prime Video as a likely landing spot. Linear media rights (for traditional cable, satellite and streaming TV services) and streaming rights are two very different things, however, so it's unlikely that it will be as simple as each of these 12 teams offering a streaming package on Prime Video next season.

For example, Diamond owns the linear rights to broadcast games for 12 teams, but owns the digital streaming rights for only five: the Tigers, Royals, Marlins, Brewers and Rays. Many details still need to be ironed out between now and next year. So it's possible those five will be available through Amazon, but the others won't. Again, a lot still needs to be figured out.

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ETA:
I left a promising paragraph out.:

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So, no RSN for the Rockies, Padres or Diamondbacks?

That's right -- while some teams created their own RSN to broadcast their games locally, three teams have gone to the direct-to-consumer streaming model. For fans who live in the home market of any of these three NL West teams, it'll cost $20 a month or $100 for the season to stream the games at Rockies.TV, Padres.TV or Dbacks.TV.

The service will let in-market fans watch most but not every game of the season because games that are nationally broadcast on ESPN, Fox, FS1, MLB Network, TBS or Apple TV Plus will be blacked out on the service. It's the same situation out-of-market fans run into with MLB.TV.

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MLB TV’s blackout rules are shite. I recently learned that all California teams are blacked out in Hawaii. I mean WTF?

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every single zip code in America "belongs" to at least 1 team's home market.

there are several states that don't even have teams that are blacked out of multiple teams for some stupid arse reason.

Louisiana is blacked out of both Texas teams.
Arkansas is blacked out of both Texas teams, plus St. Louis and Kansas City.
Iowa is basically blacked out of the entire midwest (Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Royals, Twins, Brewers)

I can't figure out their thought process soon that either.
How the hell you even going to attempt to grow the game if you make it all but unavailable to huge chunks of the country to watch the teams in their region.


or how the hell do Vegas casinos air games when they are blacked out of:
Giants, A's, Dodgers, Angels, and Diamondbacks games (maybe every one of those RSNs are available there)?
that's a full 1/3 of the schedule on any given day that's blacked out.

Not sure if it's been answered in this thread but Bally Sports + does not have the streaming right for Braves games, meaning the $20/month sub does not get you Braves games.

The only way you can watch Braves games on the Bally app is if you login with a cable subscription that includes Bally Sports South.

The only way to watch the Braves in market without traditional cable is through FuboTV and DirecTV Stream I believe.

“The only way to watch the Braves in market without traditional cable is through FuboTV and DirecTV Stream I believe.”

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Not DirectTV Stream. That’s the cable I use and I live in the Atlanta area and use it to stream the Braves. Last week I was driving back to Georgia from Knoxville Tennessee and the game was blacked out until I got a good bit into Georgia.