Comments on: Likely Unwarranted Whining…

By: TheatreBrian

TheatreBrian — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:17:25 +0000

Yeah. I truly love that I can watch every single Twins game from my computer, right out here in Portland.

Except when they play Seattle, of course.

Even if they play Seattle in Minnesota.

I suppose this is because they want me to watch it on TV. But I don’t HAVE a TV. Or cable. Or MLB exrtra innings. Which is why I have MLB.TV….

By: CapitalBabs

CapitalBabs — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:15:23 +0000

precisely FW… thus the frustrated ranting. I’ll probably get over it. Doesn’t make any of the above untrue.

By: frightwig

frightwig — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 00:11:45 +0000

The blackout rules are bizarre. I guess it’s the result of baseball clubs trying to protect their individual self-interests instead of doing what’s good for the league as a whole, once again. But it really is short-sighted.

Sounds like the Twins’ ticket policies could stand a rethinking, as well, but I don’t think prices would come down if the club stopped paying the likes of Morneau and Nathan (or, we hope, Joe Mauer), or if the club could tap greater revenue streams from media. It’s just a matter of supply and demand. Prices are set at an optimum level for profit. It really is too bad that the only “cheap seats” (which aren’t terribly cheap) in the new park are upper deck, down the line in the corners. But I don’t suppose you’ll see great discounts and price reductions unless fans start to stay away from the park in droves. Obviously, for the time being, there is no shortage of Twins fans willing to pay what the club is charging, especially this season.

By: Jim Crikket

Jim Crikket — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 22:33:09 +0000

Oh don’t EVEN think that I’m going to simply mention the idiocy of MLB’s blackout rules in a comment to one of your posts. Now that I have the bully pulpit of a blog, I’ll be putting together a truly memorable rant once the season starts. In the mean time, let me just say that Iowa… all of Iowa… is in the “home market” of the Twins, Royals, Cubs, WhiteSox, Cardinals, Brewers and Royals. Not bad… a state with no major league professional sports franchise is the “home market” for seven MLB teams!

By: KL

KL — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:47:33 +0000

With MLB.tv, there’s not just the ability to sell to those who would watch on their computers when they can’t be at the game or at a TV, but there’s also this newer mobile market that would snatch up subscriptions if they could watch any game.

About halfway through last season, MLB At Bat for iPhone added streaming video for a couple games a day, as long as they weren’t subject to blackout wherever you were physically located. I don’t know yet if they’ll still have that available, but they will have it so if you have an MLB.tv subscription, you can watch all the games, subject to blackout rules.

If not for the blackout rules, I’d definitely consider a subscription because then I could truly watch the Twins any time, since I always have my iPhone with me. As it is, I’m hoping that the random couple of games a day through At Bat still happens, because it was fun catching other games occasionally, but I’m not going to pay more for that than what I already did for At Bat.