by Jason Snell
MLB announces in-market streaming deal
On Thursday Major League Baseball announced a deal with Fox that will allow in-market streaming of games via the MLB At Bat app.
Now the caveats:
- It’s only for the 15 teams for whom Fox has the local TV rights.
- Viewing the games will require a cable login, so cord cutters need not apply—given how expensive baseball TV rights are, it’s unlikely that cord cutters will be able to pay just to see their local team’s games for quite some time.
Still, this is progress. It’s incredibly frustrating that I can’t stream Giants games to my iPad, even though I pay for the MLB video service and a cable subscription.
Then again, my Giants are among the 14 teams not covered under this streaming agreement1. Here’s hoping that this deal with Fox breaks the logjam and that all the other TV partners cut similar deals between now and opening day.
- The Blue Jays, owned by a cable company, already have this deal for their territory—which is all of Canada. ↩