No, that’s the NFL rule. MLB doesn’t need the game to be sold out. They play 162 games vs 17 for the NFL. No way every game can be a sellout.
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Jason Snell says it will be blacked out:
If you’re a fan of the San Francisco Giants or the Los Angeles Dodgers and they’re playing on a Friday night on Apple TV+, you can’t tune that game in on your local cable or broadcast channel, or even out-of-market on MLB At Bat. It will only be available on Apple TV+.
The change from the local TV announcers to the Friday Night Baseball announcers doesn’t matter to me. I already turn off the sound and sync the video with the radio broadcast (bless you, Rogue Amoeba).
It is on Apple TV, so your local TV station that normally carries your team will not have the game. That is what Jason means by “blackout”. Apple+ is a national game, so no matter where you live it’s the only way to watch the game. Similar to ESPN Sunday Night game which is on now…. even if it’s your home team, the only place to watch Sunday night games is ESPN.
Right. Maybe I misunderstood the question. I thought the question was about whether the local broadcast would be blacked out, not whether the game would be blacked out of the local market entirely.
Yes you will. I live in NY and was able to watch the Mets on Friday Night Baseball. For now it is free, but at some point Apple will require a subscription to Apple TV+.
Like @Bmosbacker, I watch around 150 games a year of my local team. I also watch national games with teams or players that interest me. I slightly disagree with @jsnell. I think many baseball fans have a category for national games and, though we’d prefer our local announcers, we don’t judge the national ones by the same standard. I get that a “podcast about baseball” is happening with a game in the background.
I think we can agree that (in every sport) some crews are significantly better than others. Practice, experience, time working together - these can improve a crew, but it doesn’t strike me that the Apple crew and I agree on what they’re supposed to be there to do. They may gel more and improve at what they’re trying to accomplish, but I don’t think their vision for excellence in their role aligns with what I want to hear - even from a national crew.
The national crew doesn’t have to be “additive” to the broadcast, but I actively dislike when I think they’re detrimental. When they make factual errors about how the game works or why a player or manager may have made a specific decision, it’s maddening. Worse is when there’s some kind of “broadcast booth antics” that pulls the camera away from the field and into the booth for long stretches of time. I want to see the players, yes, even between pitches and at bats. I do not want to see the people in the booth and occasionally “check in” on the game.
Maybe they’ll get better at all of this. I won’t give up on them yet. But, so far, I am thankful that my team has very few games scheduled for AppleTV+.
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