02-27-2019, 03:45 PM
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<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="jstraw" data-cid="341494" data-time="1551293366">
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Devil's advocate: Do the blackout restrictions still provide a positive economic benefit for either those selling tickets to games, or those paying for broadcast rights?
It depends on where you are. I think there is a positive economic benefit, for example, for NBC Sports Chicago that the games are blacked out on MLB.TV in the Chicagoland area (at least unless you can authenticate a cable subscription to stream NBCS). They want people to keep their cable subscriptions which include a fee for NBCS (especially since Comcast owns them and Comcast wants people to keep cable subscriptions).
But MLB's blackout zones are ridiculous. The entire state of Iowa is blacked out for both Chicago teams, Milwaukee, Minnesota, St. Louis, and Kansas City. Las Vegas is blacked out for both L.A. teams, Oakland, San Francisco, San Diego, and Arizona. These are people that are hundreds of miles away from a ballpark and probably have access to no more than 1 or 2 of those teams through their local cable system. They can't get the games they're blacked out for on standard cable, and they're blacked out of watching them on MLB.TV or Extra Innings.
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I'd love to hear an explanation for those blackout zones. It's so ridiculous and it can't possibly be helping MLB or cable providers in any way.