You’re a Dodgers fan, but live thousands of miles from Los Angeles so you purchase the MLBTV package so you can watch your favorite team.  Not as good as being in Dodger Stadium, eating a grilled Dodger Dog, sipping your favorite beverage, and slapping high fives with other fans, but you still get to watch the Dodgers play ball.

Except for the MLBTV fine print:

REGULAR SEASON LOCAL LIVE BLACKOUT DISCLAIMER

All live games streamed within any MLB.TV product and available through the MLB App and any other location or device where MLB.TV is sold or available are subject to local and national blackouts. If a game is blacked out in an area, it is not available for live game viewing through MLB.TV. If you are an MLB.TV subscriber within an area subject to blackout, the applicable game will be available as an archived game approximately 90 minutes after the conclusion of the game.

And then, the dreaded ADDITIONAL NOTES:

• Home television territory blackout restrictions apply regardless of whether a Club is home or away and regardless of whether or not a game is televised in a Club’s home television territory.
• Clubs located within the United States may be subject to home television territory blackout restrictions that may expand to outside of the United States.
• All San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics live games will be blacked out in the U.S. territory of Guam.

Case in point

Planning to sit down and watch the Dodgers play the Washington Nationals last night, but MLB won’t let you because you live in North Carolina; you’ve been BLACKED OUT! It doesn’t matter that the Nationals never televise one of their home or road games in Charlotte NC (see Additional Notes, first bullet point). And, the same rule applies for the Baltimore Orioles and Cincinnati Reds (neither team televises their games in Charlotte). 

OK, that doesn’t even make sense. There should be a simple use-it-or-lose-it MLBTV policy. Games cannot be blacked out unless a team actually broadcasts the games in that locale.

How about the absurdity of blacking out Giants and A’s home and road games in Guam (~ 6,000 miles from the Bay Area) when neither team broadcasts games to that area?

REALLY? Does anyone in MLB and MLBTV objectively believe that is a sensible rule?

It isn’t just Dodgers, Giants, and A’s fans who are needlessly BLACKED OUT by MLBTV.

What if you are a Seattle Mariners fan living in the remote, southeast corner of Montana, can you watch the Mariners (if not on TV, on your computer using MLBTV)? Nope, you are BLACKED OUT!

Then, there are the special arrangements whereby a streaming service like YouTube, Apple TV, Paramount, etc. has exclusive rights to stream a game — the game on MLBTV is BLACKED OUT!

Perhaps It is time for Congress to reconsider MLB’s antitrust exemption. Ask Rob Manfred and the owners the tough questions and if they cannot give reasonable answers then remove the exemption and eliminate regional Black Outs.

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