It’s the most wonderful time of the year: baseball season. Starting today, fans can catch pre-season games online. As long as they already subscribe to MLB TV or have an online Game Day Audio package. Yesterday, the Yankees and Detroit Tigers game was the most watched sports event on the MLB Network, according to Nielsen Social. Despite March Madness drawing large audiences, LA Angels and texas Rangers game was in the fifth spot. But not because audiences are streaming games.
The rub is that most fans, even if they are subscribers, can’t stream games because of the blackout rules. The NFL announced yesterday that they are suspending their strict blackout policies for 2015. But the MLB works different. Ben Geier over at Fortune explains it well:
Let’s say you’re a Cleveland Indians fan living in Iowa. If you sign up for one of the MLB’s subscription services, you can’t use the service any time your Indians play one of those six teams. That would’ve meant you would’ve been blacked out of 57 Indians games last year — 35% of the team’s entire schedule — unless you also had a cable subscription that carried the local channel carrying the game.
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If you could stream games, it would make ticket sales go down or cut into the cable subscriptions and the broadcast rights would be less valuable, and there would be less money for the teams. It’s a shame that baseball is tethered to old, dusty broadcasting policies. The MLB pioneered the second screen experience and subscription streaming packages. It’s a perfect fit: dedicated fan base, consistent content. If you want to watch a lot of baseball, you’re going to watch a lot of baseball (and boy, is there a lot of baseball). It’s a shame for fans to let the Emmy award winning technology go to waste, though a great case study for making OTTs profitable. Niche, ubiquitous, priced at value, and, of course, exclusive.