Fans Looking to Navigate TV and Streaming Outlets for MLB Season
Major League Baseball’s season opened Thursday, with fans having to navigate a range of outlets for finding the games of their home team this season. This is likely to create some confusion, leading some viewers to push up their basketball budgets.
During the regular season, MLB teams play 162 games, giving a lot of runway to the league for signing media rights deals with numerous outlets. These deals are being signed in a bid to expand its audience and reach. The recent years have recorded increasing emphasis on the placement of more games on streaming services. However, traditional cable TV is required for a majority of game viewing.
Reliable sources state that a traditional pay TV service is still the go-to place for a baseball fan considering to watch as many games as possible. Regional sports networks air a number of local games during the season. Additionally, Warner Bros. Discovery’s TBS, Disney unit ESPN, and Fox Corp.’s pay and broadcast TV networks take up a decent portion of the schedule.
Fans can also opt out of a few internet-TV bundle competitors. Most regional sports networks are carried by FuboTV and DirecTV’s DirecTV Stream. Other providers such as Disney’s Hulu Live TV+ and Google’s YouTube TV carry few of these networks.
This is because a fee for a regional sports network is broken out on pay TV bills. It depicts variation by the market.
However, the regional sports network has been brought into question. Lately, Diamond Sports, operator of a regional sports networks portfolio, filed for protection against bankruptcy, toppled by the loss of pay TV subscribers and a debt load.
The streaming services and the network are still anticipated to depict games this season.
Likewise, Warner Bros. Discovery has been considering exiting the regional sports network that was inherited from Warner’s acquisition of Warner from AT&T the previous year.
