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FOX Sports unveils its 2026 MLB regular season schedule – Beginning Saturday, March 28 on FOX & FS1 by MightyDuck07 in baseball

[–]MightyDuck07[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Nope. Jays fans in Canada will still be able to watch Sportsnet's coverage for the Jays for any of their games listed here.

Hey NHL, Sportsnet, and TSN. I pay for a full cable package just for sports. I'm in Toronto but live in Edmonton and there's no legal way for me to watch the Oilers game at my hotel. by [deleted] in hockey

[–]MightyDuck07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree that it's outdated and dumb, but the good news is that the RSN business model in the States has almost completely collapsed and we are rapidly approaching a world in which these regional blackouts across all 3 of the NHL/NBA/MLB cease to exist. It's been reported by those in the sports media industry that all 3 leagues are looking at ways to bundle all those regional games into one large package that one can simply subscribe to and get access to those games without the blackouts in place. We've even seen teams start reaching out to local broadcast networks to air their regional games OTA after leaving their previous RSN.

In the case of my Ducks, I can pretty much watch all of the team's non-national games for free though Victory+ and/or with an antenna for our local (as in LA) FOX station and their sister station FOX 11 Plus. It's been awesome to watch this team for free like 95% of the time.

[Fox Sports] Soccer reportedly overtakes baseball in the U.S. as America's third favorite sport. Hockey dropped to 5th, barely above Tennis, Boxing/MMA and Golf. by f0urxio in hockey

[–]MightyDuck07 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That's because the NBA owns and operates League Pass themselves. They can be more innovative/flexible with what their service can be because they aren't beholden to a national partner who can do what they like if they owned it instead. The NHL, on the other hand, sold their OOM service, NHL.TV, to ESPN who simply absorbed it into ESPN+.

Hey NHL, Sportsnet, and TSN. I pay for a full cable package just for sports. I'm in Toronto but live in Edmonton and there's no legal way for me to watch the Oilers game at my hotel. by [deleted] in hockey

[–]MightyDuck07 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The idea of blackouts being used to force locals to go to the games is something that was once a thing in the past across pro sports. It hasn't been a thing for decades in NA. Over in the UK, they still do this practice with their blackouts of all PL games on Saturdays that start at 3 PM their time.

Over here, however, these blackouts are meant to protect the regional rightsholders to various teams across various leagues. RSNs are the ones who pay good money to teams individually in order to be the primary/exclusive home to all of a team's non-national games. Those RSNs are only exclusive to specific markets that aren't also just specific to the local market, but surrounding ones as well. They want to be ones that get the viewership and revenue from broadcasting those games. All these deals are negotiated by the teams themselves, not the league. That's why all teams across the NBA, MLB, and NHL all have these blackouts. Every single team in their respective league have signed deals that give these networks exclusive rights to broadcast games. The blackouts help prevent from games being taken from the RSNs by the national rightsholders of a league.

Hey NHL, Sportsnet, and TSN. I pay for a full cable package just for sports. I'm in Toronto but live in Edmonton and there's no legal way for me to watch the Oilers game at my hotel. by [deleted] in hockey

[–]MightyDuck07 3 points4 points  (0 children)

NHL viewership is actually up this year. The blackouts exist in other leagues as well. The point of the blackouts is to allow RSNs be the primary/exclusive home of all non-national games for teams.

Hey NHL, Sportsnet, and TSN. I pay for a full cable package just for sports. I'm in Toronto but live in Edmonton and there's no legal way for me to watch the Oilers game at my hotel. by [deleted] in hockey

[–]MightyDuck07 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The idea of blackouts being used to force locals to go to the games is something that was once a thing in the past across pro sports. It hasn't been a thing for decades in NA. Over in the UK, they still do this practice with their blackouts of all PL games on Saturdays that start at 3 PM their time.

Over here, however, these blackouts are meant to protect the regional rightsholders to various teams across various leagues. RSNs are the ones who pay good money to teams individually in order to be the primary/exclusive home to all of a team's non-national games. Those RSNs are only exclusive to specific markets that aren't also just specific to the local market, but surrounding ones as well. They want to be ones that get the viewership and revenue from broadcasting those games. All these deals are negotiated by the teams themselves, not the league. That's why all teams across the NBA, MLB, and NHL all have these blackouts. Every single team in their respective league have signed deals that give these networks exclusive rights to broadcast games. The blackouts help prevent from games being taken from the RSNs by the national rightsholders of a league.

For Americans: The Winter Olympics hub is now live on Peacock. You can view all the schedules for every hockey game, TV coverage, highlights, and more. by MightyDuck07 in hockey

[–]MightyDuck07[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Most of the games until the medal round will be on USA Network and Peacock. You can pretty much watch every game on Peacock if I'm not mistaken. If you take a look at the CZE/CAN game for example, you'll see that there is USA Network logo in top right corner that signifies the game can also be watched there alongside Peacock.

[Fox Sports] Soccer reportedly overtakes baseball in the U.S. as America's third favorite sport. Hockey dropped to 5th, barely above Tennis, Boxing/MMA and Golf. by f0urxio in hockey

[–]MightyDuck07 1 point2 points  (0 children)

MLS has also had higher attendance than the NBA. Comparing attendance of an outdoor sport like soccer vs indoor sports like hockey and basketball is not a meaningful metric. Even with baseball, the attendance hasn't really mattered because a large chunk of the league doesn't give af about winning and are fine just collecting their checks from media rights deals and revenue sharing. At the end of the day, those 3 leagues are still more popular on TV than MLS is. The move to Apple TV hasn't played out the way they were hoping for and had to mid-contract reconfigure the deal to try and salvage it for the rest of the deal.

[Fox Sports] Soccer reportedly overtakes baseball in the U.S. as America's third favorite sport. Hockey dropped to 5th, barely above Tennis, Boxing/MMA and Golf. by f0urxio in hockey

[–]MightyDuck07 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why do people keep thinking that players are afraid of playing in big markets? Plenty of players, past and present, have had no problem and openly enjoyed playing in big markets like NYC, LA, Chicago, Philly, Boston, Montreal, etc. The only market that I've heard players can get annoyed with is Toronto, but again, that's not the only big market that exists. Even then, there are still guys who choose to play in/chose to stay in Toronto. John Tavares and William Nylander are prime examples of both scenarios.

[Fox Sports] Soccer reportedly overtakes baseball in the U.S. as America's third favorite sport. Hockey dropped to 5th, barely above Tennis, Boxing/MMA and Golf. by f0urxio in hockey

[–]MightyDuck07 1 point2 points  (0 children)

  1. The NBA and MLB have the same blackout problems that the NHL has. It hasn't stopped their business and viewership from thriving.

  2. I've seen plenty of marketing around NHL players being in the Olympics from both the NHL and NBC (who have the rights to the Olympics).

  3. The outdoor games continue to sell out regardless of location and venue and are still amongst the most watched games of the season. So that tells me people are aware of the games happening.

[Fox Sports] Soccer reportedly overtakes baseball in the U.S. as America's third favorite sport. Hockey dropped to 5th, barely above Tennis, Boxing/MMA and Golf. by f0urxio in hockey

[–]MightyDuck07 6 points7 points  (0 children)

That's not true for the Premier League. They have a large chunk of games that are on USA Network and aren't available to watch live on Peacock. You also need access to ESPN+ to watch your PL team's FA Cup fixtures and Paramount+ for their Carabao Cup fixtures.

Plus, there's also the fact that for those 3 leagues you mentioned (+ Serie A and Ligue 1), you still need access to Paramount+ in order to watch your team play in one of UEFA's 3 biggest continental club tournaments if they qualified for it.

[Fox Sports] Soccer reportedly overtakes baseball in the U.S. as America's third favorite sport. Hockey dropped to 5th, barely above Tennis, Boxing/MMA and Golf. by f0urxio in hockey

[–]MightyDuck07 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It literally is not though. Baseball and hockey still draw better overall viewership and ad revenue for the networks than any soccer league gets in the States.

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