Major League Baseball Blackout Policy

Major League Baseball Blackout Policy

Major League Baseball has several blackout rules. Games are blacked out based on two criteria:

• A local broadcaster has priority to televise games of the team in their market over national broadcasters. For example, at one time TBS showed many Atlanta Braves games nationally and internationally in Canada. Fox Sports Net (FSN) also shows many games in other areas. If the Braves played a team that FSN or another local broadcaster showed, the local station will have the broadcast rights for its own local market, while TBS would have been blacked out in the same market for the duration of the game. A market that has a local team playing in a weekday ESPN or ESPN2 game and is shown on a local station will see ESPNEWS, or, in the past, another game scheduled on ESPN or ESPN2 at the same time (if ESPN or ESPN2 operates a regional coverage broadcasting and operates a game choice), or will be subject to an alternative programming feed. ESPN are allowed up to three "co-exists" per season for each team on Monday nights. ESPN2 does not allow co-exists of Monday night games period. They will be blackout in the home team market period. MLB's streaming Internet video service is also subject to the same blackout rules, although in the near-future, MLB is rumored to be looking into the possibility of teams and their local broadcasters cutting deals with cable/satellite providers to permit in-market streaming.
• Fox has certain rights for afternoon MLB games on Saturdays, and ESPN has the same rights for night games on Sundays. Broadcasters cannot show games of in-market teams, regardless of whether the game is home or away, if the game of the local team has a certain start time (usually there are no other games scheduled at these times). This, at least theoretically, is to make people watch the out-of-market game on ESPN or Fox. The reasoning is that since people will not be able to watch their favorite team, they may be willing to settle for some baseball, even if it involves teams they are not as excited about. This results in higher ratings for the national broadcaster by pulling baseball fans away from watching their own team. The Braves and the Texas Rangers have traditionally been allowed to play (and televise locally) Sunday night home games during the summer to avoid the extreme heat often found in their home markets. Otherwise, teams avoid scheduling home games within the broadcast windows of the exclusive network broadcasts (i.e. teams will play at 1:00 Eastern or 7:00 local time on Saturdays).