{"id":3605,"date":"2012-02-16T12:46:49","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T16:46:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adam-jackson.net\/blog\/?p=3605"},"modified":"2012-02-16T12:46:49","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T16:46:49","slug":"my-thoughts-on-mlb-tvs-premium-2012-subscription-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2012\/02\/16\/my-thoughts-on-mlb-tvs-premium-2012-subscription-service\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2605 My Thoughts on MLB.TV&#8217;s Premium 2012 Subscription Service"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:11854,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.flickr.com\\\/photos\\\/adamjackson\\\/5530717073&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20190109234714\\\/https:\\\/\\\/www.flickr.com\\\/photos\\\/adamjackson\\\/5530717073\\\/&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-11-05 17:21:19&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-11-15 23:07:49&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-11-25 22:09:36&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-06 11:32:16&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-17 02:55:22&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-25 21:52:32&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-02 00:31:36&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-06 04:03:24&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-01-25 02:39:32&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-04 12:07:25&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-14 05:43:52&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-18 03:32:50&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-02-21 11:46:01&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-04 12:28:14&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-10 03:53:30&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-17 13:43:13&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:503},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-21 09:53:16&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-24 11:10:17&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-04 04:24:51&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-08 00:16:03&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-15 05:52:43&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-24 19:17:55&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-28 05:31:15&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-28 05:31:15&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:11962,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/mlb.mlb.com\\\/mlb\\\/help\\\/faq_subscriptions.jsp#q10&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20230531235451\\\/https:\\\/\\\/mlb.mlb.com\\\/mlb\\\/help\\\/faq_subscriptions.jsp&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-11-05 17:54:00&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2025-12-25 21:52:34&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-04 04:24:53&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403}],&quot;broken&quot;:true,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-04 04:24:53&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:403},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a title=\"MLB At Bat 2011 for iPad, iPhone &amp; AppleTV by adamjackson1984, on Flickr\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/adamjackson\/5530717073\/\"><img  loading=\"lazy\"  decoding=\"async\"  class=\"aligncenter pk-lazyload\"  src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABAQMAAAAl21bKAAAAA1BMVEUAAP+KeNJXAAAAAXRSTlMAQObYZgAAAAlwSFlzAAAOxAAADsQBlSsOGwAAAApJREFUCNdjYAAAAAIAAeIhvDMAAAAASUVORK5CYII=\"  alt=\"MLB At Bat 2011 for iPad, iPhone &amp; AppleTV\"  width=\"640\"  height=\"480\"  data-pk-sizes=\"auto\"  data-pk-src=\"http:\/\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5097\/5530717073_18c586342a_z.jpg\" ><\/a><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The realities of MLB&#8217;s TV service are far different then what is advertised. Let&#8217;s go over the great things about MLB.TV. I&#8217;m only going to speak on the premium service since that&#8217;s what I subscribed to:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Watch every single live game from Spring Training to End of Regular Season<\/li>\n<li>Watch games that happened in the past<\/li>\n<li>Pause, rewind and fast forward games with built-in DVR capabilities<\/li>\n<li>Games can be views within your web-browser or with dedicated apps that ship on the following platforms:\n<ul>\n<li>AppleTV<\/li>\n<li>iPad<\/li>\n<li>iPhone<\/li>\n<li>Android<\/li>\n<li>Xbox<\/li>\n<li>PS3<\/li>\n<li>Boxee<\/li>\n<li>Roku<\/li>\n<li>and more!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>You can watch games anywhere as long as there is an Internet connection and that&#8217;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&#8217;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:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Blackout Restrictions are a mess. I live in New Hampshire, 3 hours north of Boston yet I can&#8217;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&#8217;t be worth it unless I want to watch the game the next day. <a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/help\/faq_subscriptions.jsp#q10\">Here&#8217;s the full Blackout restriction FAQ on MLB.com.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Saturday games after 1PM are blacked out<\/li>\n<li>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)<\/li>\n<li>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&#8217;t matter, the game will still be blacked out.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s not all that is wrong with MLB.TV. Here are some more annoyances:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>When I first subscribed, commercial breaks were breaks in the game with a blue screen and you didn&#8217;t have to deal with commercials at all. Then, mid-season, I started seeing ads. To start a game, I&#8217;d see a minute of ads and a minute during each commercial break. I pay for a service and don&#8217;t want to see ads. There&#8217;s a workaround. If you use an Apple Devices (AppleTV, iPad, iPhone) you won&#8217;t see the ads. That might be different this year. We&#8217;ll have to see if they&#8217;ve engineered it to work.<\/li>\n<li>The DVR software sometimes doesn&#8217;t work and you must download a special plugin to use it. The plugin doesn&#8217;t work in all browsers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Most of the problems with MLB.TV aren&#8217;t decisions made by MLB but their partners, advertisers and tv networks. I understand that but these make for a crummy experience. You can&#8217;t watch a local team live and you have to deal with ads.<\/p>\n<p>This year, one major feature was added that I LOVE. At Bat &#8216;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&#8217;s a fantastic application. $15 gets you a lot of great features! For me, I&#8217;d have the iPhone App for listening to games in the car and the iPad app I&#8217;d use at games or along side my TV as a way to see plays while watching the game live.<\/p>\n<p>The problem with these apps is I&#8217;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&#8217;m stoked about that.<\/p>\n<p>The only thing you have to deal with is that I pay last year&#8217;s price, but you pay this year&#8217;s price. Previous subscribers are locked in to their original price but, this year&#8217;s MLB.TV Premium price is $124.99 (a $5 increase).<\/p>\n<p>Overall, I promised friends I wouldn&#8217;t be subscribing this year but I can&#8217;t miss out on the San Francisco Giants games so I&#8217;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&#8217;ll have to see a lot of advertisements. That&#8217;s my main warning.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One year ago, I decided to spend $119 and be a part of the growing number of baseball&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"csco_singular_sidebar":"","csco_page_header_type":"","csco_custom_appearance":"","csco_disable_excerpt_posts_layout":false,"csco_page_load_nextpost":"","csco_post_video_location":[],"csco_post_video_location_hash":"","csco_post_video_url":"","csco_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"csco_post_video_bg_end_time":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3605","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-my-thoughts","7":"category-technology","8":"cs-entry","9":"cs-video-wrap"},"apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pb3IC4-W9","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2131,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/03\/31\/watch-mlb-games-for-free-for-one-month-on-at-bat-11-for-ipad-iphone\/","url_meta":{"origin":3605,"position":0},"title":"\u2605 Watch MLB Games for Free for One Month on At Bat &#8217;11 for iPad &#038; iPhone","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Volvo is sponsoring this where a purchase of the $15 app means you can watch games for a month for free. I'm paying $119 a year for every game streamed but, if you're on the fence about how many games you'll be watching and don't want to fork out the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3935,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/mlb-everywhere-in-2013still-impossible-but-better-than-the-rest\/","url_meta":{"origin":3605,"position":1},"title":"\u2605 MLB Everywhere in 2013\u2026still impossible but better than the rest","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Everything I wrote a year ago still applies. A year later, my situation is worse. Watching or listening to every SF Giants game in 2013 will not cost $119. It'll cost me $570. At an average price of $27.21 per ticket (source), I could go to nearly 21 home games\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Rants&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Rants","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/rants\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1813,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2011\/03\/05\/introducing-adam-jackson-sf-giants-superfan\/","url_meta":{"origin":3605,"position":2},"title":"\u2605 Introducing Adam Jackson &#8211; SF Giants Superfan","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"March 5, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Today, I received an email confirmation from MLB.com with the subject line, \"Welcome to MLB.TV Premium Yearly\" In the body it has: WELCOME TO LIVE BASEBALL: Watch all 2,430 regular season games online (subject to blackout restrictions). Almost 100 games live every week. MLB.com\u00ae: Where Baseball is Always On. 2011\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Technology","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"SF Giants versus Arizon Diamondbacks - 5\/29\/2010","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4027\/4652152400_ddfa2ed32b_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4027\/4652152400_ddfa2ed32b_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm5.static.flickr.com\/4027\/4652152400_ddfa2ed32b_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1252,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2013\/01\/14\/thoughts-why-wei-blog\/","url_meta":{"origin":3605,"position":3},"title":"\u2605 Thoughts: Why We\/I Blog","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"January 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I sort of touched on this a few times before, last in 2011 in this blog post.\u00a0It hasn't really been said here why I blog when it comes to beer. For the same reason I have other blogs, content posted here is because it's fun to share things I've learned\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;My Thoughts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"My Thoughts","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/my-thoughts\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Writing On The Wall","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm7.staticflickr.com\/6111\/6208295047_8a7a83d9a6_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm7.staticflickr.com\/6111\/6208295047_8a7a83d9a6_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm7.staticflickr.com\/6111\/6208295047_8a7a83d9a6_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4064,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2014\/04\/17\/technology-frustration-with-xbox-one-games-updates\/","url_meta":{"origin":3605,"position":4},"title":"Technology: Frustration with Xbox One Games &#038; Updates","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"April 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"I have my Xbox set to remain in standby mode at all times. The mode does use power but it means system and game updates are applied when you\u2019re not using the console and the system boots faster as it\u2019s in a sleep mode and not completely turned off. Cold\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Rants&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Rants","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/rants\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Xbox One Update Frustration","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3706\/13892446221_a3b8d2c21b_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3706\/13892446221_a3b8d2c21b_z.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3706\/13892446221_a3b8d2c21b_z.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6295,"url":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/2016\/10\/20\/linked-gunners-journey\/","url_meta":{"origin":3605,"position":5},"title":"Linked: &#8220;Gunner\u2019s Journey&#8221;","author":"Adam Chandler","date":"October 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"via Vimeo: Gunner is a student in Black Mesa, AZ on the Navajo Nation. A one-way journey from home to school for Gunner is 119 miles and can take up to 3 hours. His situation is not unique on tribal lands as poor road conditions create extremely long commutes for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Linked&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Linked","link":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/category\/linked\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adamchandler.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}