Pay Ball! But Steal This Deal

It’s late March and in the 40’s in Chicago, so opening day must be here. These days, taking a family of four to a ball game almost requires a second mortgage. Bookies.com (that’s a real website) has calculated the cost of attending MLB games at each of the 30 stadiums ahead of the 2023 season. On average across all 30 teams, families will spend $190.03 on four of the cheapest available tickets, a parking spot, two beers, two sodas, and four hot dogs. And that’s before the purchase of any kind of swag. Is it any wonder that most of us baseball fans who don’t have a trust fund or access to corporate seats watch the majority of games on TV?

If you are a baseball on TV person, there are several options available, depending on which team(s) you follow and where you live. Let’s start with a trip on the "Wayback Machine". If you’re old enough to remember that, than you’re old enough to remember how good we used to have things in Chicago. Until the early 80’s free, over-the-air channels were the home to all Cubs and Sox games. In the earliest days, WGN (Channel 9) carried both teams. Then on the South Side, games moved to WFLD (Channel 32) and WSNS (Channel 44). Then, Eddie Einhorn (Jerry Reinsdorf’s partner) came up with the genius idea of starting a subscription TV service for the White Sox. The only problem was that Eddie was about twenty years ahead of his time. Not only were Sox fans angry about paying to watch games, but it turns out that it was the last straw in bringing Harry Caray to the North Side. For more information on how that went down, check out my post called, “Major League Problems with Sports Play-By-Play”. Suffice it to say, the pay-TV move was an epic fail. Between that and Harry’s move to Clark and Addison, the entire Chicago baseball landscape changed forever.

Today, Eddie Einhorn is looked at as a true visionary in sports broadcasting. Every team has most, if not all of its games broadcast on what’s known as a Regional Sports Network (RSN). In Chicago, we have NBC Sports Chicago, which is a partnership between the Sox, Blackhawks, Bulls and Comcast and Marquee Sports, which is a partnership between the Cubs and Sinclair Broadcast Group. There are no local games broadcast on over-the-air channels except for the national Fox Saturday game, carried on Channel 32, which occasionally has a Cubs or Sox game. The rest of our teams’ games are only available by paying a cable, satellite or streaming service who carries our two RSNs or via a national cable or streaming service such as ESPN, ESPN+, Fox Sports 1, TBS, Peacock or Apple TV+ which will carry an occasional Sox or Cubs game. That's a lot of places to watch a ballgame. It seems that Major League Baseball has not balked at doing business with a whole bunch of broadcast partners.

This brings me to the other way that baseball on TV or for that matter, pretty much any screen with an internet connection. I’m talking about MLB.TV. This is the streaming application that is owned by Major League Baseball. At $149 a year, it delivers every home and away TV broadcast for every team, from every single game, including many minor league games.

Every single game that is EXCEPT (and this is a big except) for team's games that are blacked-out in a local market. So in Chicago, if you subscribe to MLB.TV, your $149 will get you every game from 28 of the 30 Major League teams and 30 Minor League teams. The obvious two you won’t get on the App. are the Cubs and White Sox. To watch those games, you need to have a cable, satellite or streaming service which provides Marquee Network and NBC Sports Chicago. This makes the MLB.TV application perfect for transplants from other markets and baseball junkies. Even Milwaukee Brewer games are available in our market which is great if you’re a lover of cheddar. There are some crazy blackout rules out there. For example, it you live in places like Central or Southern Illinois, the Cubs, Sox and St. Louis Cardinal games are blacked-out. And if you live in Iowa, you may as well go directly to Hawkeye football because six teams (Cubs, Sox, Cardinals, Twins, Royals and Brewers are all blacked-out on the MLB.TV application. It should be noted that the MLB.TV application also includes radio broadcasts and there are no blackout rules for those. MLB also offers a similar package to MLB.TV at about the same cost through various cable and satellite services called "Extra Innings". The difference between MLB.TV and Extra Innings is that if you subscribe to a cable or satellite service that offers the service, it lives inside the ecosystem of that provider which makes it easier to navigate through channels.

But, back to Chicago where there are only a few options for streaming both teams. Those include Comcast Xfinity (who charges the most for its plans plus an additional $18.35 a month for our two RSN’s whether you watch sports or not, fubo (who charges $13.99 a month for our two RSN’s) or either of the DirecTV satellite or streaming services who don’t charge RSN fees, but you need to subscribe to a more expensive pricing tier to include them. It should be noted that if you are a Sox fan, you have two other options as both Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV offer NBC Sports Chicago with no additional fees, but do not include the Marquee Network.

So, what’s a Chicago baseball fan to do? First, if you are a T-Mobile subscriber, do this right now - download the T-Mobile Tuesday application and signup for MLB.TV for free. That’s a $149 full season subscription at no cost to you. Even if you don’t watch much baseball, this is simply an awesome deal plus you never know when Shohei Ohtani is going to pitch a no-hitter and hit four home runs in a game. So that’s a no-brainer. But you only have until April 4th at 3:59 am Central Time. After that, the deal goes away. As for watching the Cubs and Sox, the best price out there is probably fubo at around $90 a month including that $13.99 RSN fee. But they don’t offer TBS or TNT. So, you will miss some baseball games. Worse, if you are an NBA or NHL fan, forget it. You'll miss a bunch of NBA and NHL games including playoffs and the Stanley Cup Finals. The next best option is DirectTV Stream - not the satellite service. Their “Choice” plan at around $100 a month offers both Chicago RSNs and pretty much any other station that airs sports.

The best thing about a streaming service is that there are no contracts so savvy viewers will switch providers anytime they want. For example, during the baseball season, you can subscribe to DirectTV Stream for Cubs and Sox and when the season ends (or if the Cubs are out of it early), change over to YouTube TV. You’ll save around $25 a month while still being able to watch the White Sox, Blackhawks and Bulls on NBC Sports Chicago. That is, unless you want to watch the Chicago Sky. Their WNBA games are on the Marquee Network.

It takes research, but there are lots of ways to watch what you want while saving a lot of money. I created Lower Tech Bills because I have done all that research. Let me show you how you can save from hundreds to even thousands of dollars on your Cell, Internet and TV services. For a free look at your current bills, visit lowertechbills.com or email me at hmwellsradio@gmail.com. Now let’s get some runs!