4 ms·

And things are worse if you're in Iowa: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/sports/baseball/2021/08/12/mlb-tv-blackouts-commissioner-rob-manfred-field-of-d

And things are worse if you're in Iowa: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/sports/baseball/2021/08/12/mlb-tv-blackouts-commissioner-rob-manfred-field-of-dreams-game-top-priority-major-league-baseball/8111648002/ https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/sports/baseball/2021... > Currently, six MLB teams are blacked out all across Iowa: the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago White Sox, Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals and Milwaukee Brewers. Those teams are not available to watch with an MLB.tv subscription or when they are often aired on national broadcasts. Some of those clubs are not available on Iowa’s main cable packages either.

NickC25 3y ago
Blackout rules really need to be called into question by the government. It's dumb that if I want to watch a game and I live within like 3 hours of the stadium, I have to actually go to the game or pirate a stream. The rules need to be refined to a small area within a a half hour's drive from a stadium, and that's it.
- criddell 3y ago
  Blackouts these days aren’t about filling seats, it’s all about television rights. Regional sports networks buy exclusive broadcast rights to games for particular teams in some region and that results in a blackout. In Hawaii, for example, most of the west coast baseball teams are often blacked out in MLB.tv because some broadcaster has picked up the rights for those teams. Nobody from Hawaii is going to fly to Seattle to see a game because of a blackout.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I do not see why the government would need to get involved in the transaction of leisure activities.
  - criddell 3y ago
    Any yet baseball has an anti-trust exemption. And twenty years ago, there were congressional hearings on the use of steroids in baseball.
  - gottorf 3y ago
    While I agree with you in principle, the state has an interest in preventing anti-competitive activities, and what the GP described seems to fit.
    - duped 3y ago
      It's not anticompetitive if it's literally not competing.

NickC25 3y ago

Blackout rules really need to be called into question by the government. It's dumb that if I want to watch a game and I live within like 3 hours of the stadium, I have to actually go to the game or pirate a stream. The rules need to be refined to a small area within a a half hour's drive from a stadium, and that's it.

criddell 3y ago
Blackouts these days aren’t about filling seats, it’s all about television rights. Regional sports networks buy exclusive broadcast rights to games for particular teams in some region and that results in a blackout. In Hawaii, for example, most of the west coast baseball teams are often blacked out in MLB.tv because some broadcaster has picked up the rights for those teams. Nobody from Hawaii is going to fly to Seattle to see a game because of a blackout.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
I do not see why the government would need to get involved in the transaction of leisure activities.
- criddell 3y ago
  Any yet baseball has an anti-trust exemption. And twenty years ago, there were congressional hearings on the use of steroids in baseball.
- gottorf 3y ago
  While I agree with you in principle, the state has an interest in preventing anti-competitive activities, and what the GP described seems to fit.
  - duped 3y ago
    It's not anticompetitive if it's literally not competing.