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Apple TV+ Shares 2023 Friday Night MLB Schedule, Subscription Now Required

gleepskip said:
It's not worth $70. It was barely worth free, especially with the horrible commentators. For $30 more per year, you get dozens of MLS matches with competent announcers.
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Yeah but you also get soccer instead of baseball.

I know some may find baseball boring, but nothing is more boring than a sport that normalizes 0-0 ties as completed games.
 
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ProfessionalFan said:
Seems early for a Friday NIGHT baseball game.
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Ever watched NBC SUNDAY Night Football on many other days of the week? In the last year or three, I think I've seen mid-week, FRI and SAT.

Remember when Apple Computer started selling things that were not computers? Oh my! Eventually, they dropped "Computer" to better address this kind of issue.
 
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Baseball was better when players were juiced. Now you can’t take out the catcher, second baseman, no shift, pitchers don’t hit in the NL anymore and pitchers don’t go beyond 5 innings so unlikely to get a chance at a complete game unless you are in a no hitters/perfect game situation
 
gleepskip said:
It's not worth $70. It was barely worth free, especially with the horrible commentators. For $30 more per year, you get dozens of MLS matches with competent announcers.
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Melanie Newman and Katie Nolan are gone. That’s a HUGE improvement.
They also saw Steven Nelson go to the Dodgers. He was easily the best play by play announcer from last season. Also remember that the announcers were all employed by MLB. And they have numerous people who shouldn’t be allowed near a broadcast booth or studio.
 
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sjsharksfan12 said:
And these games are blacked out on MLB.TV I assume. Something confuses me about MLB. They talk about the whole blackout situation, yet they sign exclusive deals with both Apple and Peacock and those games are blacked out anyway unless you get a subscription. So if you buy MLB.TV, Peacock, Apple TV, and subscribe to an internet cable package, that's a lot of money just to legally watch baseball. Seems counter productive.
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America's sport delivered to your home the American way. ;)
 
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HobeSoundDarryl said:
If you don't want to pay for baseball, they don't care if you like it or not.

If you don't want to pay for iPhone, Apple doesn't care if you like it or not.

If you don't want to pay for electricity, your energy provider doesn't care if you like it or not.

Blackouts is a concept driven by a desire to sell seats in the stadium. It is somewhat antiquated now that TV deals yield far more revenue than ticket sales. Nevertheless, blackouts probably still work in terms of driving passionate fans to buy tickets and go see games in person. If they didn't work (meaning make more money), the leagues would probably do away with them... as non-blacked out games can still make money on advertising sales... and more money on more eyeballs watching the game.

Go to one professional sports game in America and get decent seats and you probably spend more than any of the streaming "whole season" packages. So that is MORE revenue from you than they can get by encouraging you to NOT attend a game by removing blackouts.

All such decisions are carefully calculated ones about how to maximize revenue for their "product." If some decisions turn some people away from watching in any form, that's OK, as long as the revenue maximization is believed to be optimized.
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Well yeah but I would be willing to watch an ad sponsored tv broadcast, which is all the NFL requires of me.

I wasn’t very interested in football until I watched it on TV and now I may well buy a ticket to a live game. Baseball doesn’t seem to want to give me that option.

Sure it’s their business decision. But as I think you are agreeing, it’s a counterproductive one.
 
HiVolt said:
Haha, no thanks. Baseball is a regional sport now... I watched the broadcasts last year for my team the Blue Jays, and the commentary and analysis was so robotic... These people don't have a clue about the inner workings of the team as the local team broadcaster.

They expect me to pay $69 to watch 4-6 games of my team per season? That's as much as it costs me to pay for the sports streaming service of my home team's broadcaster for the full baseball season.

Sorry, the value is not there. I'll listen on the radio for those games.
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Baseball has ALWAYS been a regional sport just like the other 3 major US sports (NFL, NBA and NHL). Isn’t everyone just interested in watching/following their local teams?
 
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CarAnalogy said:
Well yeah but I would be willing to watch an ad sponsored tv broadcast, which is all the NFL requires of me.

I wasn’t very interested in football until I watched it on TV and now I may well buy a ticket to a live game. Baseball doesn’t seem to want to give me that option.

Sure it’s their business decision. But as I think you are agreeing, it’s a counterproductive one.
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NFL Sunday Ticket is- I believe- the MOST expensive of the streaming offerings... and it has blackouts too.

Those ad-sponsered NFL games you watch have ad-sponsered MLB game equivalents. In fact, there are MORE baseball games because baseball is played on many more days & nights than NFL... over a longer season too. If you have cable/satt or cable-equivalent streaming services, you'll probably drown in "included" baseball games if you seek them out. Watch on FOX, FS1, TBS, ESPN, and MLB Network this year.

I don't know where you live, but there is abundant baseball on television even if you are a cord cutter and have only an antenna for the local networks (FOX). If you dodge the free TV via antenna too, there are sports bars and friends/family homes where you can similarly sample baseball games for free to then decide if you want to watch one in person. Or come on down to Florida or Arizona this time of year and watch MLB for relatively dirt cheap in spring training games.

I'm not really defending their choices as I'm a consumer first(!) thinker (too). However, it's easy to understand WHY they- and all sellers- make decisions that seem anti-consumer. Why? Because the bulk of us just roll over and pay. While you appear to be finding the ability to say "NO" to this, others will just accept it and pay. Apple will take their (presumably) fat cut, MLB will enjoy their new revenue stream, the person/people who forged this deal will probably earn their bonuses, MLB will make more money, Owners will enjoy added profit, etc. EVERYONE in the selling chain WINS because buyers just accept whatever is offered and vote positively for it with their wallets.
 
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Johnnyboy55 said:
Melanie Newman and Katie Nolan are gone. That’s a HUGE improvement.
They also saw Steven Nelson go to the Dodgers. He was easily the best play by play announcer from last season. Also remember that the announcers were all employed by MLB. And they have numerous people who shouldn’t be allowed near a broadcast booth or studio.
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MLB employees? That's shocking. I guess the question remains who selected them: MLB or Apple.
 
I wonder if the Daily Recap will still be free? I watched the whole season that way. Got to see a little of each game and got back a ton of hours of my life.
 
Does Major League Baseball still offer a free game on their app everyday during the season? If so paying $6.95 per month is a bad deal just for two Friday night games.
 
I don't know anyone that wants a 'subscription' for games from a variety of teams on a certain day of the week.

They want a subscription to watch THEIR team's games every day that they are playing.

The fact that all of the parties involved (team owners, content managers, networks) know this and continue dicking everyone around is part of the reason why ratings are down for MLB and NFL.
 
Maybe with enough money and influence, Apple can help make the MLB interesting/relevant again.

I said what I said.
 
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