Doinig my best to explain the MLB Blackouts

The dreaded MLB Blackout, hard to explain and hard for fans to understand. Iowa is "claimed" to be a part of the home TV market of all six Midwest MLB Teams (Twins, Brewers, Cubs, White Sox, Cardnails, and Royals). In fact, Iowa is one of the few states in the country to be claimed by multiple MLB teams as part of their home TV market.

What does all this mean? It means alot of things and I will do my best to explain the blackout rules and here we go!

1 - For starters, if you live in Iowa and your a fan of say the Twins and Mediacom or whoever your cable TV provider is doesn't carry FS North and you think by purchasing MLB.TV (the Major League Internet video package) you'll be able to get the Twins on MLB.TV, it's not going to happen.

All six of the Midwest MLB teams will have their games blacked out on MLB.TV. Since you live in the Twins home TV market, the Twins and FS North want you watching the games on FS North.

Just using the Twins as an example, across Northern Iowa, FS North is part of the basic programming packages on Dish Network, DirecTV, and Mediacom and elsewhere across Iowa, FS North is included the sports pack of both DirecTV and Dish Network.

2 - Whenever any of the aforementioned Midwest MLB teams have a weeknight national appearance on either ESPN or MLB Network, almost all the time, the national feeds will be blacked out and replaced with an alternate game or ESPNEWS. Just like with MLB.TV, the teams and their respective TV partners want you watching the game on the RSN. For example, here in Des Moines, say the Twins are playing on both ESPN & FS North the same night, Twins fans with Mediacom get shutout because Mediacom carries FS Midwest instead of FS North and the Twins game will be blacked out on ESPN in Des Moines, regardless if FS North is on cable or not.

3 - Both the Cubs & White Sox have a few games each year that are televised only in the Chicago TV market on an OTA station (WCIU-TV). I've seen instances in the past of a Cubs game being scheduled for WCIU and ESPN the same night and the ESPN feed will be blacked out here in Des Moines. In my opinion, that's just wrong, obviously Des Moines isn't part of the Chicago TV market, so why should Cub fans who live outside of the Chicago TV market, but yet within the Cubs TV "footprint" be black balled?

4 - Whenever Fox Sports is televising a regular season Saturday game, whether it be in the 2:30pm (CT) window or now for select weeks, the 6pm (CT) window, Fox has exclusive TV rights for these windows. What this means is that basically, if you're a baseball fan, you're watching MLB on Fox or nothing at all, regardless if your favorite team is being shown on Fox or not. This is a problem when say for example the Cubs, Cardnails and Twins are all scheduled to be on Fox at the same time.

No question the blackouts are confusing and hard to understand, but for whatever reason, the MLB blackout rules often draw more criticism than the blackout rules of both the NBA & NHL (which other than Fox Saturday Blackout in #4 above, are fairly similar to that of MLB).

Bottom line, if your a fan of a Midwestern MLB team and your cable provider doesn't carry any or all of the games of your favorite team, satellite and if necessary a subscription to the sports pack is the way to go.

Here is a link to a map showing all of the MLB home TV markets across the country: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MLB_Blackout_Areas.png

Earlier this year, I did my best at breaking down the regional sports networks and who gets what across Iowa: http://iowatubetalk.blogspot.com/2011/01/breaking-down-rsns-in-iowa-who-gets.html