As someone that's recently moved to a non-baseball market, I can personally attest to the insanity of Major League Baseball's blackout policy. In North Carolina, I don't live within four hours of an MLB team, but the Orioles and Nationals are blacked out here while the Braves are blacked out for people that live less than an hour away When the Panthers play on Sunday, CBS games still run opposite Carolina on Fox, meaning that we're not even considered a primary Panthers market here, even though they play two hours away in the same state. And as bad as the blackout policy seems here in NC, it's nothing compared to somewhere like Vegas, where all five California teams and the D'Backs are blacked out.
Still, baseball promised to fix its arcane policy with the launch of the MLB Network on the first day of 2009. Of course, "promised" is used for a reason. Biz of Baseball is reporting today that the owners are once again pushing blackout discussions back until some time after the new year. Which probably means never. So if you're a Twins fan in North Dakota or a Mariners fan in Montana or a Cardinals fan in Oklahoma, you're still out of luck. Because Major League Baseball hates you and would rather that you just didn't watch them play, anyways.




