MLB.tv whiffs with early-inning error on Opening Day

MLB.tv subscribers looking forward to watching some Opening Day baseball took to social media Thursday afternoon to express their outrage at the app's outage.

Problems reportedly began during the streaming of the day's two earliest games -- the Milwaukee Brewers at the New York Yankees and the Baltimore Orioles at the Toronto Blue Jays -- with the games cutting off. Nine more games started in the 4 p.m. ET hour, and viewers were met with an error message that instructed them to try again later.

Users reported the service was up and running around 4:40p.m. but that was no consolation to fans who waited all winter for March 27 and wanted to experience the pageantry of Opening Day from the start.

"Took a day of PTO and the MLB.TV doesn't work for opening day. Terrrrrrible look and such a disappointment for a product I pay $150 for," subscriber Ben Fawcett (@benjaminfawcett) wrote on X.

The timing of the outage -- aside from Opening Day -- couldn't have been worse for Major League Baseball, which said last month it no longer will partner with ESPN after this season. One of the reasons given was the increased interest from streaming companies, and that wasn't lost on at least one fan.

"@MLB wants to ditch @ESPN and move to streaming, so naturally mlb.tv is COMPLETELY DOWN ON OPENING DAY. Karma," wrote Doug Hardy (@doughardy31) on X.

Variety reported that as of 4:03 p.m. ET Thursday, more than 21,000 complaints had been made on the monitoring service Downdetector.com.

There was no explanation about the outage on the MLB's website, but there was an article letting fans know they could buy MLB.tv for $149.99 a season.

--Field Level Media