The only problem is the revenue side of things. What's the ceiling on revenue for the MLB app? 2 million subscribers if all in market games were included would be a pretty big success, and definitely on the optimistic side of things. That's only 300 million/year. The RSNs are bringing in around 3 billion/year. So that is a drop in the bucket.
It's not great for growing your audience if the primary method of watching is getting people to buy your app. Look at Thursday Night Football. Everyone who goes to Amazon sees ads promoting the countdown to the game. People who watch the game go through the Amazon app or webpage and there is exposure and value added to both Amazon and the NFL.
A full MLB in market package could be worth a lot more to Amazon than the amount people would pay for MLB, and it would be a lot better for MLB if people start seeing promos for games on Amazon and can spontaneously watch games without buying anything else.
I'm sure Amazon paying a fortune is the hope, but ratings for national baseball games are terrible. I don't see any way that the MLB gets a deal that comes remotely close to replacing RSN money- remember RSN ratings are also terrible, but cable companies felt they had to carry the networks and then passed the money onto subscribers. It's one of the reasons that cable packages go so expensive. I see no world where Amazon/Netflix/Apple gives baseball a similar deal.
