Major League Baseball Blackout Policy - United States

United States

All of the Continental United States, except for some small, remote, isolated patches, are within at least one team's blackout territory. Some areas may lie within the territories of two or more. As the accompanying map shows, teams generally have exclusive territorial rights only over their home cities' immediate area, but even then there are exceptions. For example, all of Texas, including the Houston metropolitan area as well as the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, as well as the entire state of Louisiana, is within both the Astros' and Rangers' blackout areas. Outside of the immediate area, several teams may exercise blackout rights within the same territory. The entire state of Iowa, for example, is within the blackout areas of the Cubs, White Sox, Brewers, Twins, Cardinals, and Royals. Southern Nevada likewise lies within six MLB teams' blackout territories (Athletics, Giants, Angels, Dodgers, Padres, Diamondbacks). Areas of far western Kansas and the Nebraska panhandle represent an anomaly; although being geographically closer to Denver than Kansas City, they are included in the blackout territory for the Royals and not the Rockies. This is likely a remnant of pre-1993 territorial exclusions, since the Royals were the only team between Kansas City and California, except for the Astros and Rangers, between 1969 and 1992. A similar anomaly is that the El Paso area in Texas is not within the blackout territory of the Arizona Diamondbacks, despite El Paso being considerably closer to Phoenix than to either Texas-based MLB team (the New Mexico side of the El Paso area, by contrast, is within the D-Backs' blackout zone). This is also likely a remnant of territorial exclusions predating the D-Backs' 1998 entry into MLB. MLB relies on zip codes to determine its blackout areas. For some areas in the west side of Metro Phoenix, the zip code begins with 853xx. Because of this, a fan that resides within 10 miles of Chase Field will be blacked out of all online San Diego Padres games. Fans who wish to discuss these oddities are never able to reach an actual office or person who can discuss issues that may (to the fan) seem obviously incorrect.

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