Regional Sports Channels

[jffrider12]

I live in Buffalo Ny and want to watch pittsburgh pirates games.I can't stand that im forced to watch Yankees and Mets every day..buffalo falls within the pittsburgh blackout area and you cannot watch games on mlb.com or extra innings..please add the Root Sports network to the regional sports package and I will gladly pay

[jasonacg]

Even if that channel was added to your lineup, the same blackout rules would still apply. It's based on your location, not the region that Root focuses on. The channel would still be forced to go dark during games, or switch to alternate programming.

Same thing happens with us in Florida. For example, we get the YES channel, but we can't see Yankees games.

In short, blame the leagues for this one, not Verizon (or any other provider).

[hallrk]

Yes this is an MLB problem. They have extremely archaic black out riles. Basically any team can claim any territory as their own. Just really stupid and archaic. I have hope with the new commissioner that he may do soemthing abut this. But I"m afraid change happens in MLB is like watching paint dry. 

[BajaAlta]

A different sport, but perhaps a promising precedent:

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000480822/article/nfl-suspends-local-blackout-policy-for-2015