The Pastime

While bumming around this here inter-web, I’ve run across a few interesting opinions on the recent (and yet officially unannounced) news about DirecTV’s exclusive deal with MLB.

If you’ve been living under a rock for the past two weeks, what I’m talking about is the deal that DirecTV brokered with MLB to be the only place that fans can see out-of-market games.

It’s been as unpopular as the Spiderman II logos on bases. I can only hope that a similar response will be taken by the powers that be in baseball.

I’d guess that about 98% of the response has been negative, nay, strongly negative. The only people who are defending it do so from a shaky premise, that it’s better for baseball to take the money than branch out to fans who may or may not just buy MLB.tv anyway. Joe Sheehan is the most visible proponent of the deal, and even he’s not exactly pleased with it.

Make no mistake: this is a fairly fan-hostile decision. However, MLB has proven that it will alienate a segment of the population in the short term to make more money in any term. This is comparable to the way in which teams have rushed to move their telecasts to new channels that they own.

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Maury Brown, one of the more reliable sources for information on how baseball runs its business, and why, weighed in very early, when this was all just a bad dream of a rumor.

An exclusive DirecTV deal with MLB will place the sport in the sights of Congress yet again. If the deal goes forward, it will be one more example of consumer restriction. There is already ill-will amongst those caught up in the convoluted blackout policy as it pertains to out-of-market broadcasts. There were approximately 750,000 subscribers to MLB Extra Innings last season. How do you think fans will react when they find out that not only are they caught in the “Blackout Blues,” but that many will also have to jump from cable to DirecTV for that dubious privilege? One might surmise that there will be fewer subscribers this year than last.

He’s revisited it this week, and adds this:

So while MLB has claimed that it wishes to grow the league’s fan base and popularity, it is going to restrict television viewership in exchange for short-term financial gain. This seems like a huge gamble given that the difference between the InDemand offer and the DirecTV offer stands at just $30 million a year. Maybe this is a strategy to get those that can’t get Extra Innings into MLB.tv. That’s fine, I’ll drink that kool-aid, but does it really make good business sense to force consumers into a product, as opposed to offering it up as an extended reach product beyond television? I’m getting e-mails that sound like Howard Beale in Network: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

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One of the most original and eloquent takes on the matter comes from Mark Donahue of Bad Altitude, a Rockies blog at Baseball Toaster. My favorite part: [emphasis mine]

While on the whole the public response to the deal (which, in the spirit of full disclosure, hasn’t been officially announced yet) has been uncommonly coherent and unanimous for the blogosphere, there isn’t any way in the world that all of us yahoos screaming in the wilderness will change MLB’s mind. No bloggers are writing the league a $700 million check. (Thus far. Mr. Cuban? Mr. Cuban?) To me a pro sports league accepting a cash payment in exchange for which it ensures its product will be seen and enjoyed by fewer people is as unAmerican as it comes. But see, I’m still pretending I live in the United States where baseball is the national game.

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Brian Borawski writes the Business of Baseball Report for the Hardball Times, and shared an interesting tidbit: [emphasis mine]

I had an interesting conversation with a gentleman who was close to negotiations over Extra Innings from the side of the cable companies who are losing out here. He indicated that the exclusive deal wasn’t necessarily something that MLB was pursuing but that it was something that was brought to the table by DirecTV.

He also indicated that he thought this was DirecTV’s attempt to create a niche for itself in the television market. DirecTV already has exclusive access to the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package, and now with baseball, DirecTV can call itself the king of sports programming.

He also thought that DirecTV would be able to give MLB’s new 24-hour network more attention. Cable companies probably wouldn’t cover it under their basic packages, while under DirecTV, it’ll probably be available to all subscribers.

At least this wasn’t something that MLB brewed up on its own, but it’s still a questionable idea.

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As I was driving home from working at the newspaper last night, I flipped on my XM radio, and the MLB channel was replaying The Show with Rob Dibble and Kevin Kennedy. While I’m not going to tout them as any kind of paragon of baseball discussion, I will point out that not only were they befuddled and angry (as usual) at the DirecTV deal, but every single person who called in was upset. Of course, it’s just a national version of a sports talk radio show, so take that as you will.

Even so, I think there’s a consensus, and a larger one than people estimated, that this is a bad deal, and no one likes it. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it grow to the level of complaint that people stirred up with the NFL Network/TimeWarner deal last fall.

What upsets me most about this entire fiasco, though, isn’t that it will be harder to watch baseball. Sure, that’s a huge factor, but it’s not what really grates on me. It’s that this is the latest step taken by baseball that’s out of touch with the fans. There is no accountability there. The foundation of any major sport is the fans, and when you marginalize their best interests, it outweighs any short-term financial gain. I understand that this was a business decision based on $30 million a year more income, but I don’t believe it will be worth the trade-off.

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And to top it all off, here’s an outstanding little limerick I ran across at the Humbug Journal:

“We beg and beseech you, Commish,
We’ll pay you whatever you wish
To be able to see
Your sport on TV,
Just spare us the odious dish!”

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 25th, 2007 at 2:54 pm and is filed under General Baseball, Rumors, Opinion, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.