Major League Baseball Screws Its Fans, Again
It’s been rumored for a while but, in late January, 2007, Major League Baseball (MLB) reached an exclusive deal with DirectTV to carry their Extra Innings (EI) Package. MLB EI is a lucrative package in which fans can purchase year long access to EI, allowing them to watch out of market games of their home teams. Additionally, DirectTV will also be the only carrier to provide fans with access to MLB TV, MLB’s long planned 24-hour baseball channel.
This move, proves yet again, that MLB does not care about their fans. They care about the quick buck, what’s in it for them, and how much cash they will rake in now. This exclusive deal with DirectTV will be in effect for the next seven years, making it impossible for many people to purchase MLB EI. For some customers it is impossible to own a satellite dish. These people are either unable to install a dish, due to restrictions in leases or community agreements or because they cannot get a southern signal. Others refuse to switch for various reasons, including those who believe satellite is an inferior service, those who enjoy digital cable more or have cable packages with their Internet and telephones, making a switch unnecessary, aggravating, and too much of a hassle.
Major League Baseball claims that nothing is finalized, so there is a chance that things could change. Senator John Kerry has recently become involved as well. He hopes to challenge the legality of such a deal, stating that customers should have a choice of services.
Proponents of the deal claim that the NFL has a similar deal with DirectTV in the Sunday Ticket. While similar, it is different on two distinct points. First, Sunday Ticket was never available to the general public via different TV sources. Extra Innings has been available via the many different cable TV and satellite operators. Unlike Extra Innings, the Sunday Ticket was never snatched away from millions of people who once enjoyed its services.
Second, there is the question of congressional antitrust exemptions. If Baseball continues down the path they are headed, MLB could see more oversight than they want from the government.
According to sources, this deal is all about money…and payback.
Two industry sources said a key to the deal was DirecTV’s agreement to put a planned baseball channel owned by MLB on its basic service. The cable companies could well insist on putting it on dreaded, lightly subscribed sports tiers, for which viewers pay an extra fee.
This stems from bruised egos at MLB. The NFL tried a similar deal towards cable companies. They wanted the NFL network on the lower tiers, while the cable companies insisted on placing it on the sports tiers. It is idiotic for MLB to think that the cable companies would cave to them on the same exact issue. Once rejected, MLB decided to go with an exclusive deal, shutting out the cable companies. Baseball fans end up pawns in this game and have little control over two large companies slugging it out to see who’s the biggest jackass.
Baseball fans, however, can still purchase mlb.tv, providing they have a high speed connection, and watch the games on their computers for $80 per year. This is great if you like dropped streams, out of sync audio, promised games to not be shown, general poor quality of video, and watching the game in a tiny window unless you like pixelation in your picture.
As a lifelong baseball fan, the situation is tenuous. At the moment, I live in the NY Mets metro area and, thus, receive their TV channel, SNY. I see all their games every year. However, I will be moving out of the NY Mets’ market area soon and will be out of luck watching any games. I cannot get DirectTV and, even if I could, I do not like the quality of satellite and I cannot afford the huge unvestment required to switch. I will be left out in the cold. But baseball doesn’t care about me. I’m just one of the 750,000 people who would have signed up for Extra Innings. I don’t have the cash DirectTV has to turn executives’ heads at MLB headquarters.
They’ve simply screwed me again and believe that I will take it lying down. The reality is, after 36 years, I’ll stop following baseball and they will lose my loyalty as well as that of several other family members. They won’t get money from me attending games, nor will they receive cash from merchandise I may have bought. But, according to MLB, that’s okay. They just got $700 million from DirectTV. My few hundred dollars can’t compare to that.
