One year ago, I decided to spend $119 and be a part of the growing number of baseball fans who subscribe to a service that provides thousands of games to your television and devices via the web with no commercial breaks and DVR capabilities. It was my way of watching every San Francisco Giants game without any fear of missing out on the action or going through hoops to illegally pirate content. I spent $119 for access to games no matter where I was in the world.
The realities of MLB’s TV service are far different then what is advertised. Let’s go over the great things about MLB.TV. I’m only going to speak on the premium service since that’s what I subscribed to:
- Watch every single live game from Spring Training to End of Regular Season
- Watch games that happened in the past
- Pause, rewind and fast forward games with built-in DVR capabilities
- Games can be views within your web-browser or with dedicated apps that ship on the following platforms:
- AppleTV
- iPad
- iPhone
- Android
- Xbox
- PS3
- Boxee
- Roku
- and more!
You can watch games anywhere as long as there is an Internet connection and that’s pretty awesome. I think the biggest and greatest reason I feel great about paying for a sports service is I become a number that other leagues can pull from. Basically, my paying convinces other groups to create similar services. MLB.TV was first followed by MLS, NBA and now NHL. NFL is the big hold out on an online streaming service. Paying for this shows that there is a market for putting these games online and a market that people will pay for. There are a lot of down-sides to MLB.TV and most of these aren’t the fault of Major League Baseball. The fault lies on groups that demand restrictions. Here are the restrictions MLB keeps in the fine print for Blackouts:
- Blackout Restrictions are a mess. I live in New Hampshire, 3 hours north of Boston yet I can’t watch Red Sox games. The same goes for Northern California and SF Giants / Oakland As games. MLB.TV works for me because I moved away from San Francisco. If I was a Red Sox fan, the service wouldn’t be worth it unless I want to watch the game the next day. Here’s the full Blackout restriction FAQ on MLB.com.
- Saturday games after 1PM are blacked out
- Postseason games are not accessible live. You can pay extra for that I believe or watch them after the game has aired. This is due to TNT / TBS exclusivities (same for Saturday games)
- Oh and that Blackout regions thing also applies to away games. Live in New England and the Red Sox are playing in Texas? It doesn’t matter, the game will still be blacked out.
That’s not all that is wrong with MLB.TV. Here are some more annoyances:
- When I first subscribed, commercial breaks were breaks in the game with a blue screen and you didn’t have to deal with commercials at all. Then, mid-season, I started seeing ads. To start a game, I’d see a minute of ads and a minute during each commercial break. I pay for a service and don’t want to see ads. There’s a workaround. If you use an Apple Devices (AppleTV, iPad, iPhone) you won’t see the ads. That might be different this year. We’ll have to see if they’ve engineered it to work.
- The DVR software sometimes doesn’t work and you must download a special plugin to use it. The plugin doesn’t work in all browsers.
Most of the problems with MLB.TV aren’t decisions made by MLB but their partners, advertisers and tv networks. I understand that but these make for a crummy experience. You can’t watch a local team live and you have to deal with ads.
This year, one major feature was added that I LOVE. At Bat ‘2012 for iPad and iPhone are each $15. This is very expensive but, paying this you see live game plays, ball speeds and other stats while the game is going. You can also view highlights. If you subscribe for Audio only or MLB.TV, you can listen to / watch games with DVR functionality. It’s a fantastic application. $15 gets you a lot of great features! For me, I’d have the iPhone App for listening to games in the car and the iPad app I’d use at games or along side my TV as a way to see plays while watching the game live.
The problem with these apps is I’d pay $119 and then $30 in mobile apps. For the first time, MLB is making these companion app available for free to MLB.TV subscribers. AWESOME. This saves $30 for me so I’m stoked about that.
The only thing you have to deal with is that I pay last year’s price, but you pay this year’s price. Previous subscribers are locked in to their original price but, this year’s MLB.TV Premium price is $124.99 (a $5 increase).
Overall, I promised friends I wouldn’t be subscribing this year but I can’t miss out on the San Francisco Giants games so I’m going for another year. The mobile apps being included is a fantastic savings and now the Xbox 360 is supported. You have to love baseball to get this and, if you do, signing up is a no-brainer. Just be warned that if you watch games through a web browser, you’ll have to see a lot of advertisements. That’s my main warning.