Actually, I’ve got no idea whatsoever whether I’ll actually be able to view the thing — my cable system says it’ll be on, but it’s said that when ESPN has televised the last two Giants games, and all I’ve seen is ESPN News because of MLB’s archaic TV rules (I’ve bitched about this during NFL season too, because I get stuck with mediocre 49ers games and even shittier Raider games), or according to Wikipedia, it may even be that ESPN expands the blackout area for its telecasts beyond even what MLB prescribes — why, I have no idea, but the theory itself would make a bit of sense considering that the games aired on TBS between the Giants and Braves came through clearly and without blackout.
Why the blackout makes no sense (aside from the idiocy factor) is that I live in an area of California usually lumped in with the L.A. market as far as cable TV is concerned — our Fox Sports affiliates are the L.A. channels; we don’t get Giants or A’s games in the first place — we won’t be getting KTVU either. Semi-rural or less urban markets have to deal with this crap all the time, particularly in the Midwest, with the clusterfuck between the Royals, Cardinals, and Cubs blackouts and territory — eventually the league is going to have to catch up with technology, as the MLB.tv debacle over blackouts is going to spill over.
Filed under: ESPN, MLB, sports on tv, stupidity | Tagged: San Francsico Giants
I ran into a problem with mlbtv a few weeks back, when the Cardinals were in LA. I live in VA, and am in the O’s/Nats “home” area, but I was blacked out from that Dodgers series evidently because my IP address had me in SoCal; thus I could watch any of the games. I was able to watch the San Diego series, though; go figure. Comcast took over our cable system from Adelphia late last year, and I’m thinking not all of the bugs have been worked out in the transfer.
The only way I see any of this being resolved is through some kind of class-action lawsuit.