MLB to offer single-team MLB.tv packages in 2016

Corsi

isn't shy about blowing his wad early
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Dec 3, 2010
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For diehard baseball fans, MLB.tv is a must-have service. For the very reasonable price of $129.99, you can watch every out-of-market game for the season. Baseball nerds like me more than get their money's worth.

But, for casual fans, dropping $130 for the full service might not be so appealing. Rather than watch multiple games each night, some folks just want to watch a few innings of their favorite team a couple days a week. Paying for the full package in those instances is not ideal.

Thankfully, MLB will introduce single-team packages next season, allowing fans to subscribe to their favorite teams rather than the entire league. The all-or-nothing aspect of MLB.tv will be eliminated.

The news comes not from MLB itself, but from a lawsuit filing passed along by Nathaniel Grow of FanGraphs. The lawsuit, Garber vs. Office of the Commissioner of Baseball, is challenging various league broadcasting practices under federal antitrust law. Buried in the filing is this tidbit:

"... beginning next season MLB will make single-team, out-of-market streams available for purchase (alongside the out-of-market package) on MLB.TV."​

So yes, the single-team package does still only cover out-of-market games. MLB has reached an agreement allowing in-market streaming of clubs broadcast on Fox affiliates starting next year -- that covers 15 of the 30 clubs -- but that is a separate service. You have to be a cable subscriber to have access to that.

The single-team MLB.tv package is its own plan. A Pirates fan in California could subscribe and follow their favorite team without getting stuck paying for all the broadcasts they never watch, for example. That's a pretty great service for fans who only want a piece of the pie and not the whole thing.

MLB has yet to officially announce the single-team plans and there's no word on the cost just yet. We'll find out soon enough.
http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/25430538/mlb-to-offer-single-team-mlbtv-packages-in-2016
 

uncannymanny

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Jan 12, 2007
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Another smart move by MLB. What they lose in full package dollars should, depending on the price point of the single team package, be easily surpassed by the number of new subscribers who now feel it's reasonable price to watch their own team. Honestly, I'll probably switch to the single team package myself and I've had the full season every year since MLBAM hit the scene. I rarely watch any non-Sox games anyway. Anything else I want to see is usually available as a free highlight in the apps.
 

Hank Scorpio

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Apr 1, 2013
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Interesting, but this only applies to people out of market? I'm really interested in ditching cable in the near future, and my main argument against it is losing NESN, which is a wasteland outside of Red Sox games and pre/post-game shows.

Does this cover playoff games too?

Edit: I've subscribed in the past couple of years anyway, mostly for spring training games (yeah, maybe I have a Red Sox baseball obsession...), and not so much for other games. Still, there were a few instances where I liked the option to tune into other games. I think there was a crazy KC/CWS game I tuned into for instance, along with half of SoSH. I forget the significance, but I think it was a brawl game.
 

uncannymanny

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I'd love if I could just get NESN out of market. The one thing I dislike about MLBTV is not getting the pre/post shows.
 

brs3

sings praises of pinstripes
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May 20, 2008
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edit: I misunderstood this. I believe this doesn't change the fact that I can't watch Red Sox games vs the Mets or Yankees since I don't have cable.
 

canderson

Mr. Brightside
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Jul 16, 2005
39,428
Harrisburg, Pa.
I'll be in but ONLY if you can still select alt audio feeds or crowd noise only.

And only if it's $40 or so less than the full package.
 

uncannymanny

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Jan 12, 2007
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Does anyone know how they check region? Is it something you could fool with a proxy or do they require documentation?
Proxy works, they don't require any docs. It's wherever the connection is coming from. If I go to Chicago for work I wouldn't be able to get local feeds there.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Dec 4, 2005
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Proxy works, they don't require any docs. It's wherever the connection is coming from. If I go to Chicago for work I wouldn't be able to get local feeds there.
There's some ambiguity involved, unless they've changed their policies. Maybe five years or so ago, we were taking a big golf trip to Hilton Head and we wanted to be able to watch the Sox. One of us signed up for the free trial and we were still blacked out, though in SC. After spending time on the phone with customer service, they explained that since we were on WiFi, they couldn't pinpoint our location and in that case, it defaults to billing address, which was in the Boston market. Blacked out. I would recommend looking into it if anyone is considering this option.
 

Icculus

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I live in Wyoming currently but my bank + billing address is still in Vermont. I just use Paypal and have had no issues. Well, Rockies games are blacked out.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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I live in Wyoming currently but my bank + billing address is still in Vermont. I just use Paypal and have had no issues. Well, Rockies games are blacked out.

To be clear, our issue was because of wifi. If you're hard wired I don't believe it's an issue and as I said, they very well may have changed their protocols. Just saying I'd check it out - it took a while and a few phone calls to get them to refund charges after they didn't properly cancel at the end of the free trial period.
 

uncannymanny

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There's some ambiguity involved, unless they've changed their policies. Maybe five years or so ago, we were taking a big golf trip to Hilton Head and we wanted to be able to watch the Sox. One of us signed up for the free trial and we were still blacked out, though in SC. After spending time on the phone with customer service, they explained that since we were on WiFi, they couldn't pinpoint our location and in that case, it defaults to billing address, which was in the Boston market. Blacked out. I would recommend looking into it if anyone is considering this option.
Wifi isn't magic, it has an IP address just like any other connection, tied to the same isp as a wired connection would. Obviously you're not lying, but this seems really odd to me. The billing address being the fallback does make total sense though. I do hope your friend was able to move out of the restaurant though.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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That was the argument he made to the customer service agent. What I wrote was their response. I know nothing about this shit, so while it didn't make sense to us either, that's what we were told. There may have been details that weren't relayed to me, so I got nothing above what I've already written. It could quite literally be nonsense, but there it is.
 

Lowrielicious

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Apr 19, 2011
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Wifi isn't magic, it has an IP address just like any other connection, tied to the same isp as a wired connection would. Obviously you're not lying, but this seems really odd to me. The billing address being the fallback does make total sense though. I do hope your friend was able to move out of the restaurant though.
Sounds like it's just some confusion over the usage of the term wifi, which would usually mean wireless connection to a wired service (i.e. your wifi router at home, or wifi in starbucks, which would have a generally accurate IP address<-> geolocation match). I would say mlb.TV would have trouble pinpointing location when on cellular wireless data service (rather than a "wired" wifi connection).
 

uncannymanny

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Jan 12, 2007
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Oh, I don't doubt your story one fraction of an iota (apologies if that was unclear), more just musing on what the hell they were talking about because it really doesn't make much sense. Of course their system several years ago was probably a lot less worked out than it is now and then there's accounting for personal error of a single customer rep.
 

Icculus

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I did specifically use Paypal in case there was still some check on billing address. I'm not sure when they started accepting Paypal but I do know that a few years back my boss had to have someone else buy it for him because of that check. I've had it the last 2 years and streamed from my phone on 4G and used my internet with no issues. Only time I did run into something was when I had my VPN set to east coast.

I agree with Canderson about getting the price down below $100 for me to bite. I really don't watch/listen to much of anything live except for the Sox but I will occasionally put on games for other people so if it's just $10-$20 off I'll keep the full package.