MLB and Fox agree on in-market game streaming #jam

Buried under the "Joey Votto snubbed for MVP" news from yesterday was this tasty little nugget from Maury Brown. Baseball and the loose coalition of FOX Sports regional networks that carry baseball games have come to a three-year agreement to allow live-streaming of games for in-network fans. Half of MLB teams have agreements with these FOX RSNs to carry their games, including your Reds, so a good majority of baseball fans will finally get to watch their favorite teams on the internet.

This is huge, by the way. MLB.tv is really the primary way for fans to watch their baseball on the internet, but blackout rules always apply for local teams. The word "local" is crap, though. For example, I live in Columbus, Ohio. That means that my "local" teams are the Reds, the Pirates, and the Indians. So even with a paid (/cough thanks, Cy /cough /cough) MLB.tv subscription, I couldn't watch any games involving those teams. The rationale behind that is that I should, with reasonable effort, be able to purchase a cable TV subscription that would allow me to watch those teams. The impact though is awful: Mike Bates of the Mothership documented his season-long torment by MLB.tv. Living in Iowa, he was blacked out of over a third of all major league baseball games played in 2015. DOMBBBBBBBB.

This new in-market streaming should remedy that situation, if only tangentially. See, one must still have a cable subscription to stream games. Fox will be the one providing the streaming content, so you'll have to have a cable package that carries that particular Fox RSN. Of course, we cord-cutters are a crafty lot, so I'm sure we'll figure something out. But it's a major step that this stuff is even available at all on the internet. This truly is the future.