Baseball Blackout Rules

Major League Baseball, like many other businesses during slumping economic times, has decided to take matters into its own hands in an effort to gain higher attendance and increase sagging ticket sales at parks around the country. A major part of the strategy is to make games less accessible to local television and webcast audiences through "blackouts." Games that were once readily available for broadcast in a team's local market are now being blacked out (unavailable for live broadcast viewing) based on major television network agreements and desire for higher fan attendance.

  1. Television Blackout Rules

    • The FOX Network entered into an agreement with Major League Baseball that will force blackouts of all games each Saturday between 1:10 p.m. EST and 7:05 p.m. EST. Likewise, ESPN will exclusively broadcast all Sunday night games after 5 p.m. EST. TBS also has an agreement that will force blackouts in many areas for Sunday afternoon games.
      The MLB Network's Thursday night broadcasts are also blacked out in each team's home viewing area. However, the viewers in those areas will normally be provided with an alternate game.

    Webcast Local Live Blackout

    • Under the Local Live Blackout rules, Major League Baseball games will be blacked out in the home team's television viewing area. An exception to this is for certain home games where MLB.com is offering some form of subscription service.

    Webcast Regular Season National Live Blackout

    • The regular season National Live Blackout policy prevents any Saturday Major League Baseball games before 7 p.m. EST and Sunday games after 5 p.m. EST from being broadcast live via the Web.

    Webcast Post-Season National Live Blackout

    • The post-season National Live Blackout policy prohibits webcasts of all Major League Baseball post-season games in the United States, Canada, South Korea, Japan, Guam and the Virgin Islands.

    Confused Yet?

    • The blackout rules for Major League Baseball games can be extremely confusing, and altogether frustrating for loyal fans. All professional sports leagues have implemented some sort of blackout policy, but because baseball teams play more than twice as many games as other sports, it becomes a much more complex issue. Major League Baseball is not oblivious to the rants of the fans, but it doesn't seem to be in a big hurry to quash the blackout blues.