The Fox Sports MLB Saturday Game of the Week returns to primetime this weekend with a super sized serving of six regional telecasts, three of the regional telecasts involve the Minnesota Twins, Kansas City Royals, and St. Louis Cardnails. All three of those teams claim Iowa as part of their TV footprint.
Due to the exclusivity of the Fox Sports contract with MLB, Fox Sports will have complete control of the prime time window as the Fox Sports game is the only game allowed to be televised. Translation, if you're a Twins or Royals fan in Central Iowa, you are in effect blacked out from watching your team play Saturday night, even though your team may be shown in some Iowa markets.
Here's how I see a coverage map for Saturday night across Iowa.
LA Angels @ Minnesota KPTH (Sioux City) KXLT(Rochester/Mason City), & KTTW (Sioux Falls)
Kansas City @ Texas KPTM (Omaha/Council Bluffs)
St. Louis @ Colorado KDSM* (Des Moines), KFXA (Cedar Rapids), KYOU (Ottumwa), KLJB (Quad Cities)
*Confirmed via the program guide on KDSM's website.
In a situation like what we are going to have Saturday night with multiple "local teams" playing at the same time on Fox, I really wished that Fox Sports would allow the games not picked up for local coverage to still somehow being shown in that team's respective home TV market. Yeah, I know, keep on dreaming.
Six games! what were they thinking?!
ReplyDeleteAnd if your team is not part of the Fox national schedule, that means no TV coverage at all (like the Brewers last Saturday) and you're forced to watch an out of market game or nothing.
I choose nothing.
It wouldn't be a big deal if Fox would allow for the other 5 games to be on MLB Extra Inning, but they don't even allow for that.
ReplyDeleteI realize its only one game out of 162 and it's Memorial Day Weekend, but I guess it's the principal of it.
I've heard Fox may do "whip around coverage" but haven't found confirmation of it.