Commentary: Mariners blackouts just a part of larger issue for MLB

Apr. 20—On Sept. 30, 2022, for the first time since 2001, the Seattle Mariners made the playoffs ending the then-longest postseason drought in major North American sports. After coming one game shy in 2021, after years and years of hope and anguish from fans, they finally made it.

Just one problem. Unless you were at T-Mobile Park or watching the game on Root Sports, you didn't see it.

This season, if you have Dish or Sparklight (formerly Cable One), you don't even have Root as an option.

Root Sports, a local cable channel in the Pacific Northwest, is the only licensed television broadcaster for Seattle Mariners games. And the only place you can watch it if you still have cable is DirecTV (but not DirecTV Stream. Because that makes sense).

Although Root is available as a single channel or on packages for streaming services like Fubo, Sling, YouTube TV and Hulu Plus, the lack of options for cable customers and the oh-so-annoying blackouts highlight a bigger problem for the MLB as a whole: In the year 2023, Major League Baseball, the biggest league in the world for the sport that is supposedly America's pastime, cannot figure out television.

This is a problem. Fans want to watch their favorite teams, they want to see their favorite players. And channels with the broadcasting rights to games are extremely inconsistent as to what services they're available on, leaving fans to deal with blackouts of their favorite teams, or the financial burden of completely switching services.

Blackouts fall under a federal law called "syndication exclusivity," which was first passed on March 31, 1972, by the Federal Communications Commission.

As pertaining to sports, blackouts have been used since then in local markets. Barring nationally broadcasted games (ESPN's Field of Dreams game, for example), the general idea is to black out local games so people can be incentivized to either buy the packages that air the games on television, or go to the games in person.

In short, you don't want blackouts? Pay to see the game.

It's an understandable practice from a business standpoint, but there's one issue — the year is 2023. More and more people are choosing to pull up the games on their phones, tablets or computer screens rather than sit down at the couch and flip to whatever channel is the correct one.

But for some reason, the MLB doesn't understand that.

Aside from games slated for the national schedule, most teams operate on a case-by-case basis as to who they allow to broadcast their games. It's not exclusive to just baseball — the NHL and the NBA do the same thing.

For all three of the aforementioned leagues, they have either a league pass or a place where all their games are aired (the NHL streams all of its games on ESPN+ while the NBA and MLB have league passes). In theory, this should be a good thing. Fans living away from areas their favorite teams play in can watch and keep up with their squads, stream and throw a game on the TV at any time.

Should be a great thing, except when it comes to the local games.

The NHL, NBA and MLB all bow down to the blackout rules in place for in-market games. And, again, this is understandable from a business perspective.

But here's the issue: streaming is taking over. More and more people are moving away from cable boxes and dish satellites. According to data from Nielsen, in July of 2022, streaming services accounted for 34.8% of viewership in the United States while cable accounted for 34.4% and broadcast television accounted for 21.6%.

Streaming is here to stay. And blackouts need to go, or at the very least need to be amended.

MLB decides its blackouts based on zip code prefixes. This has created imperfect blackout ranges that just don't work in modern times.

Mariners games are blacked out in Washington, Idaho, Montana and Oregon. That's a four-state radius.

Consider that the distance away from Seattle in that region is anywhere from two hours to 17.

How many people do you know who drive 17 hours to MLB games consistently?

Definitely not enough to justify blackouts in those regions.

Iowa — the entire state of Iowa — is blacked out for Cubs, White Sox, Brewers, Twins, Cardinals and Royals games. If you live in Iowa, you cannot watch 20% of the teams in the entire league.

The MLB has tried to amend this by changing its rules to get fans interested in the games again. Banning the shift, instituting the pitch clock, increasing the sizes of the bases, etc. And it's working.

The MLB saw a 42% increase in viewership this season for opening day on MLB.TV compared to last season, but the way to keep fans around isn't rule changes — it's the stars.

Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, Jazz Chisholm, Tim Anderson, Juan Soto, Xander Bogaerts, Julio Rodriguez, Jose Ramirez, Fernando Tatis Jr., Aaron Judge, Mookie Betts, Clayton Kershaw, Gerrit Cole, Dylan Cease, Luis Castillos, Robbie Ray, Justin Verlander. These are just a few of the many star players in the game today who the MLB hasn't been able to market and capitalize on because of its archaic and, frankly, asinine television broadcast rules.

So, what's the solution? Blackouts are never going to completely go away; the league and the franchises make too much money licensing their games to local television stations. But blackouts also can't keep going the way they are now.

Firstly, amend the television contracts even more so that the Game of the Day or Friday Night Baseball games on streaming services like MLB League Pass and Apple TV aren't subject to blackout rules. It's confusing and it's frustrating when games are picked out as featured contests and are still subject to blackout rules.

Second, heavily — and I do mean heavily — reduce blackout regions. Restrict the blackout zones to within a state and/or within six hours of the stadium.

There's problems with this, as well. Television stations aren't going to be willing to give up their area coverage so easily, and there's always the argument they can throw out that people can just go to services like Fubo or Sling to get their teams' games. There's also the issue of trying to get all teams and stations to adhere to the new rules given the variety of contracts the franchises and league have on the national and local levels.

But something has to change. Because, ultimately, if the only way Mariners fans are seeing Julio Rodriguez hit home runs or Robbie Ray throw strikeouts is via YouTube clips, it's a problem. And it's a problem the MLB needs to solve if it wishes to recapture even a sliver of the magic it once had.

Kowatsch can be reached at tkowatsch@lmtribune.com, 208-848-2277 or on Twitter @Teren_Kowatsch.