Territorial Broadcasting?

Hi, John. That's a very good question to ask; one that not many have been.

Teams have exclusive rights to their home games for broadcasting. Because several teams are (or were formally) owned by media conglomerates, those rights are then granted to those channels. Those teams who don't have ownership ties to media companies tend to make deals with local channels for broadcasting all home games.

This creates a situation that's kind of the opposite of MLB. That is, home games are broadcast within the local market that the team is playing in. My understanding has been that games are blacked out in the U.S. on both cable and Internet to their local markets. (Are they available over the air within market?)

The Pacific League (half of Japan's teams) have combined to form Pacific League Marketing to which they all sign their broadcasting rights over to, and PLM has been aggressively working to make better deals with cable providers and have created on-demand Internet streaming services. This is more along the lines of MLB.com, where all teams' rights are pooled together for the benefit of all.

The Central League teams are holding onto their rights with a clinched fist and are very reluctant to move into the 21st Century. I will give credit to the Giants, though, for teaming up with One World Sports to allow their broadcasts to grace the cable-sphere in North America. That Giants are also the only CL team to grant permission for all of their home inter-league games to be broadcast on the Pacific League's streaming service. It almost seems as though somebody has wrestled the control of the Giants from the dinosaurs who have long been in charge and are moving slowly to the present and future.

Is that the kind of thing you're looking for?

I can't comment on the full situation in the U.S., but there are some ridiculous black outs. Sometimes when I've tried to watch a nationally televised Yankees game (only because they were playing the Red Sox) on the cable sports channel ESPN, it has been blacked out. I'm from upstate New York, a good 5 or 6 hour drive from Yankee Stadium. The reason in this case is they want everyone to subscribe to YES, the Yankees own network. So, you can be blacked out of a game that is supposed to be nationally broadcast. I was even trying to watch a Japan game in the WBC last time at home and the station was suddenly blacked out because it was the time when a Yankees pre-season game was scheduled to be broadcast. Infuriating.

To clarify the black out issue in the US a bit - basically you are forced to watch the local broadcast on TV (either cable or over the air) for whatever team or teams you are in the territory for. So when I had Extra Innings from Direct TV, I could only watch the Orioles or Nationals feed for their games while all other games I could watch either the home or away team's feed. If either team was on ESPN any time other than Sunday night (or TBS or MLB Network), the game would be blacked out on that channel. I have MLB.TV now and I can't watch the Orioles or Nationals on it at all - if I want to watch them, I have to watch on TV.

The definition of "local market" is pretty arbitrary as well. I live in north east Maryland a little bit closer to Philadelphia than Washington DC. But I'm considered in the Nats market and not the Phillies. My uncle lives in Davenport, Iowa and is considered in the "local market" for some ridiculous number of teams - five I think (Cubs, White Sox, Cardinals, Twins and Brewers maybe?)