Anyone else here hate the blackout rule?

[ZIM4MVP]

I live more than 3 hours away from RFK and I can't watch the Nats play at home because of the blackout rules.  Just wondering if it affects any of you.

[2k6nats]

I live in Vermont, so the blackout rules don't affect me.

[ZIM4MVP]

you get MASN in Vermont?

[Ali the Baseball Cat]

Blackout?  I get MASN on DirecTV...no blackout.  I go to a lot of home games, and watch the rest. 

you get MASN in Vermont?

[2k6nats]

you get MASN in Vermont?

I was referring to MLB.TV.  When you get MLB.TV, you can't watch games in your broadcasting area (Washington residents can't watch the Nats on MLB.TV).

Sorry for the confusion.

[bob2274]

I live two hours away, so I can only see live Nats games on MASN. The blackout rule is only there to protect the rightsholder (in our case, MASN) from anyone else being able to show its particular team's games in their designated area. MASN paid about $26 million to the Nationals this year to show all their games, and part of that deal was that no one else can show them within their territorry. That's how MASN was able to get all these cable companies to carry the channel. The "blackout rule" really doesn't have as much to do with us living close to the game as much as it does the potential TV audience. That's why away games are included.
In many cases, a certain team's blackout territory can be ridiculous. Check out this map at http://www.maurybrown.com/images/MLBTerritories.jpg
It's a little outdated, but the Nationals territory is shared with the Orioles. Toronto's territory includes all of Canada. The territory for Seattle includes all of Alaska (making it the largest in the US), and Hawaii is shared by the three southern California teams. The smallest territory belongs to Philadelphia. All of the territories are ridiculously large, but we are in one of the smaller ones. All of them overlap, and a couple areas include the territories for six teams.

[KyleScha]

During the 2005 season I could get most games on MLB.tv (I'm in Fairfax). During the 2006 luckily I had MASN, but I did travel around Virginia and it seemed to work. Its sort of hit or miss even if you are in the blackout territory.

[bob2274]

Looking at the "blackout map", there are lots of holes that MLB left out where it looks like they meant to include these places. There is a big hole over what appears to be Fairfax County. Just consider yourselves fortunate if your zip code has been left out.

[nats2playoffs]

...Toronto's territory includes all of Canada...

It seems kind of strange that they didn't consider whether Expos fans would want to continue following the franchise, and allow Washington to still claim it - especially since MLB gave 90% of their rights to Baltimore.

[bob2274]

I would imagine RDS wouldn't want to invest the kind of money to keep carrying them anyway. Fans in Canada can still follow the team on MLB Extra Innings. The package will even still be on cable there.

...and let's not overstate our case here. MLB mantated that the Nationals SELL their TV rights to MASN, which yes, is almost 90% owned by Baltimore.

[DPMOmaha]

I'm really fortunate in this regard to live in Nebraska.  We're in Royals territory, so, nothing ever get's blacked out. 

[bob2274]

I'll have MASN on my local Comcast system by opening day, so I'm fortunate too. They are showing all of the Nationals and Orioles games, and all of the other teams' ESPN, WGN, TBS, and INHD games will not be blacked out. In other words, where I live, if a game is blacked out, it will be available live on MASN.

[The Chief]

For better or worse I'm with DirecTV for another 18 months or so, but since they have MASN on channel 626 regardless of where I may end up living, I'm not too worried

[ZIM4MVP]

I live two hours away, so I can only see live Nats games on MASN. The blackout rule is only there to protect the rightsholder (in our case, MASN) from anyone else being able to show its particular team's games in their designated area. MASN paid about $26 million to the Nationals this year to show all their games, and part of that deal was that no one else can show them within their territorry. That's how MASN was able to get all these cable companies to carry the channel. The "blackout rule" really doesn't have as much to do with us living close to the game as much as it does the potential TV audience. That's why away games are included.
In many cases, a certain team's blackout territory can be ridiculous. Check out this map at http://www.maurybrown.com/images/MLBTerritories.jpg
It's a little outdated, but the Nationals territory is shared with the Orioles. Toronto's territory includes all of Canada. The territory for Seattle includes all of Alaska (making it the largest in the US), and Hawaii is shared by the three southern California teams. The smallest territory belongs to Philadelphia. All of the territories are ridiculously large, but we are in one of the smaller ones. All of them overlap, and a couple areas include the territories for six teams.

i thought the blackout rule was to get more fans into the stadium instead of sitting at home watching on TV,  when games are sold out the blackout rule dosent apply like redskins games on fox every sunday

[bob2274]

The blackout rule for sellouts is only for the NFL. Every other sport sells the rights to games (home and away) to a regional sports network, or in some cases, to a group of local broadcast stations within a region. In baseball, hockey, basketball, and soccer, blackouts have nothing to do with attendance. I guess the mindset in football is that if you don't show the game on TV, people will buy the remaning tickets. Every other sport generally uses TV to promote the team and eventually sell more tickets. Just watch how much more popular the Nationals are this year around here with most cable companies carrying every game live on MASN.

[ZIM4MVP]

so even though I would be blackedout on MLBTV if Comcast in my area would carry MASN, I would get to see the Nats play?  I noticed TBS is always blacked out when the Braves play in DC, is that for the same reason?

[bob2274]

Yes, because of MLB rules, MASN is the only place to see live Nationals games in this region. Everything else is blacked out because MASN is paying $26 million for the exclusive TV rights. That's the only reason for the blackout. You will see every Nationals game, either home or away, on MASN, regardless of stadium attendance.
The only exceptions are Saturday games on FOX and Sunday on ESPN. they are exclusive nationally, so MASN would not have the rights to show these games.

I live in Richmond, and on channel 43, Comcast says "MASN 1, LAUNCHING APRIL 1". MASN2 will be on channel 19. Cox is launching the channels in Hampton Roads on 3-27.