Major League Baseball’s antiquated blackout rules were rewritten Tuesday, after the league reached an agreement in a class action lawsuit that alleged collusion between teams and television networks in erecting boundaries around where certain games could be aired. The settlement resulted from a number of consumer-friendly changes MLB agreed to make to MLB.TV, its online streaming subscription service.
The biggest changes are a reduction in price for the full package to $110, and the creation of new single-team packages that will cost $84.99. Another change will allow fans that subscribe to both cable and MLB.TV to pay an extra $10 to gain access to the visiting team feed for in-market games. That means if you’re a diehard Rockies fan living in New York, instead of having to watch the game on SportsNet New York, you can watch the Root Sports Rocky Mountain feed on MLB.TV.
The settlement didn’t kill all of MLB’s awful blackout rules. The best example is Las Vegas, which is considered to be in the blackout territory for the Dodgers, Angels, Giants, A’s, Padres, and Diamondbacks, and thus Las Vegas fans can’t watch as many games as fans in the blackout territory of just one or two teams. But it’s progress.
[AP]
Photo via Getty; h/t Evan
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