Can someone explain to me how MLB got itself into a scenario where its a total pain in the ass for most people to access their product without spending a fortune?

The Cardinals' popularity came from a massive radio audience across the Midwest and center western US.

The Cubs gained popularity even when terrible being on WGN all over the country.

The Braves had TBS.

Now its a ****ing pain in the ass to figure out how to get access unless you want to devote yourself to Direct TV or buy a streaming service just to watch the games. Its insane.


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One of many reasons baseball is losing popularity. You also could watch them on local TV at one point. Fox Sports Midwest was at least somewhat accessible when they took it away from local broadcast. Now it’s a complete pain to watch games.

Meanwhile you can watch most Chiefs game on local TV or accessible networks (other than the bullshit 1 off streaming game a year. Fuck that) all across the Midwest including all of Missouri both ends of the state.
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Honestly, I think this is one of BB largest problems. The access to the product is becoming darn near impossible.

I would just as soon the Cards would stream every game (no blackouts) and then I would buy it. Simple.
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Who thought this was a great business model? Its insanity.
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Nobody.

Bally Sports got bought by Sinclair Media and Sinclair promptly drove it into a MFing mountain.

This was wholly a product of the Fox Sport group getting purchased and parted out. And I don't imagine MLB expected that to happen. The Regional Sports Networks were a perfect solution for baseball - baseball is largely a regional sport. The teams get followed by their local fanbase but it hasn't generated a true 'national' market for probably 50 years. There are just too damn many games played for folks to care about any single game on a Thursday where they don't have a rooting interest.

But the RSNs addressed that perfectly and brought a level of access that was largely unprecedented. What we have now is somehow STILL better than what we had in, say, 1997. But it's certainly a roll-back of 25 years of progress on that front.

It's a mess. But at least as it relates to this specific mess, I'm not positive there was anything else that MLB could've done.
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I've never in my life had a problem accessing Cards games until FSMW got parceled off.

RSN were available on all cable and satellite platforms (before there even was streaming) since I started watching the Cards in 1995 or 96'. Most cable packages it was standard programming back in the day.

What I don't understand is how Bally or Sinclair or whoever owns the rights to the team's games doesn't seem to understand that accessibility is how they make money rather than continually feuding with service providers. And yes MLB seemed to get blindsided by it.

Hopefully in the end MLB takes the nonsense over and you can start getting your teams channels independently.
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Baseball has the perfect setup waiting to keep a regional model with national reach. Take all local rights in house - have games on MLB Network. Localize it where each region gets their teams games. In the actually city, simulcast the games on a local over the air television station. I'm sure one of the CWs or similar would love to have the Cardinals or Royals games on every night. Then stream the rest on MLB.TV where you pay for what kind of package you want.
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I've had the MLB streaming package for 10 years or so. I've always streamed it through an app on my TV or the app on my phone. No issues. Its $99 a year for only the Cardinals games. You can pay $129 and get every game played by all teams.
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That doesn't work for people in market, only out of market. See how ridiculous this is? Its easier for out of market fans to watch the games than in market fans.
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There’s six teams I get blacked out of in Des Moines. If those teams aren’t playing each other that’s almost half the league I could be blacked out of at any given day. Closest stadium to me is 3 hours away.
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Well that sucks. :-)
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From first to worst.

Pirates are your saviours to keep you out of the cellar.
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Victor Scott's OPS in Memphis is below .400 right now.

We pushed that kids development back 2 full seasons. And honestly, we should just acknowledge that and move him down to Springfield with the idea that he spends all of 2024 there, most of 2025 in Memphis and maybe sees the bigs in 2026.

This team raw-dogged the shit out of that kid. Just unbelievable how bad they are at this.
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He'll end up traded to the Ray's for peanuts then magically become a legit force
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Not really a Rays kind of player, though.

He's a guy we'll insist is amazing and waste 3,000 PAs on over 7 years of bouncing around the lineup and burning through option seasons. In the meantime we'll trade 2 players BETTER than him.

One benefit to the Ozuna deal is that it at least kept us from doing that with Magneuris Sierra. Ricky and Butters would still be rubbing themselves raw over his occasional catches in the OF while batting .215 with an OPS of .650.

"Man he can really pick it. You can see why the Cardinals value him so much. That defense and his speed on the bases makes him a big part of this Cardinal core..."
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