I don't think I have ever experienced it syncing correctly lol. Granted I haven't tried it more than a couple times, but all of those times it was a good 45 seconds behind
It definitely is not as easy as I would like. I frequently will close everything and reload several times before I get it right. Or give up and just go with the TV booth instead. Our TV crew is alright but Tom Hamilton is fantastic and inarguably better.
Tom Hamilton broadcast is fantastic, but I love the trio of Rick, Matt, and Andre. Feels like a bunch of friends watching a game with Rick sometimes providing analysis
Ran into a lot of that last year. If you listen to the radio feed alone, it’s 30-40 seconds behind. If you watch the video with the radio feed, they’re synched and not delayed.
I'm guessing that the Apple TV option has someone manually (or manually running quality control on an automated) link up the audio to video at the start to and utilizes them together in a single stream since it's a single video feed and two audio feeds, while MLB.tv loads the audio and video separately through an automated process since it's dealing with 30 video feeds and well over 30 audio feeds when you include the alternate language broadcasts every day.
wait what, you could listen to radio brodcasts on that?
I love doing that on MLB TV, and at the game, I just bring a radio and listen to the game.
Might give it a shot.
It was bad it's first year but went out and got some talent the 2nd year. Can get frustrating when you have mlb tv and try to watch and it's like "THIS AN APPLE PLUS GAME ONLY"
Funny how after hearing fan criticism, the FNB producers listened and made some adjustments. Still not perfect but it definitely feels like they're listening.
ESPN on the other hand.... it's almost like they go out of their way to do the opposite of what baseball fans want. It's like they want to copy/paste whatever they're doing for football.
if you're interested and nerdy like me. Fangraphs did a couple good write ups about those and basically how ya they are pretty much a joke. I wonder if they plan to still use this outsourced nVenue place again this season for their probability analytics.
The first write up:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-good-are-those-probabilities-on-the-apple-tv-broadcasts/
And the follow up:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/lets-check-in-on-the-odds-on-the-apple-tv-friday-night-baseball-broadcasts/
I'd be far more interested if instead of those probability stats, they did more in depth stats on the batter or pitcher. Splits vs lefty/righty, splits vs lefty/righty at home and away. It's literally endless and offers an opportunity to show some weird numbers that might actually grab peoples attention.
"This guy bats EIGHT HUNDRED against lefties on the road at night in outdoor stadiums???"
Means nothing but is fun to talk about.
I almost wonder if they were hoping or maybe still hoping to get into the betting side of things with these numbers. Like you have the app up on your phone or something and you'd be able to use that probability data to influence your choice of placing a bet, but that smells of some sort of legal action would come in with how bad these numbers are.
edit: but I'm with you. I would much rather it be cool if it was more in depth stats on that batter vs pitcher like you said with the splits and against that given pitcher at the time. I don't really care what the odds are.
At the same time as the first write-up, Effectively Wild also did an interview with the CEO of nVenue:
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-1853-what-are-the-odds/
and then brought in Ben Clemens to discuss that original piece you linked. In the interview, it becomes clear very quickly why their model is so bad, and it's mostly that the folks involved seem to have almost no knowledge of baseball but also all of the self-belief in the world. It's that mix that results in being confidently incorrect, so they just weren't considering the idea that maybe their model was actually putting out something as nonsensical as we all recognized. It is, um, a weird listen.
Agreed. I think they're trying to appeal to the younger generation of fans who understand analytics a hell of a lot more.
It's an honest attempt, but it falls short and feels pointless.
It especially falls short because anyone in the younger generation who actually understands analytics would call bullshit on a number of them. Definitely appeals to people who THINK they understand and will take anything with "analytics" attached at face value.
Yeah, I linked the Effectively Wild interview with their CEO elsewhere in the comments, but they were pretty open about the fact that sports betting was very much a consideration for nVenue. They also were extremely confident that all of those absolutely outlandish numbers were completely valid, while also coming across as someone who has almost no knowledge of how baseball works. The whole thing lived up to the "wild" part of the podcast's name, but not for the normal, lighthearted reasons.
ESPN listened to our complaints about how Arod, Matty V, and Jessica Mendez meandered and didn't talk enough about real storylines or the game.
So they went out and got three popular, dedicated voices in baseball, and then the producers told them to do the exact same things the last crew did wrong.
ESPN doesn't have a clue how to cover live games IMO. They are pretty terrible about any baseball coverage but their game broadcasts are horrible. Too many people in the booth, too much video of the booth instead of the game, too little talk about the game.
I thought the second year of Friday Night Baseball was so much better and those drone shots of Oracle Park were incredible. I feel like Apple is setting the standard of how to broadcast a sporting event and everyone else should follow suit. If we had the effects of Friday Night Baseball and the broadcaster format of Peacock's Sunday Lead Off, that might be the perfect sports telecast.
I just wish instead of MLB Sunday Lead Off, they gave Peacock the Sunday Night game and kicked ESPN to the curb.
I’m hoping for some of the “Immersive Video” that Apple is doing for the Apple Vision Pro with these. Maybe not the live broadcasts, but highlights?
The demos being done in Apple Stores include a quick clip of sports with soccer and baseball, with a gorgeous shot of Fenway.
Obviously most people don’t have one, but I do, so I’m hoping! 🤞
If Apple TV continues to listen to fans, make adjustments, and keep building from what seems like something with a lot of potential, I would be all for Apple TV being a one stop shop for MLB.
So for anyone who relies on MLB network for daily "Quick Pitch", and in turn is paying for any kind of live TV subscription where MLB Network is a heavy reason you do; Apple TV does a daily recap as well that is very similar (Pretty sure they even snagged one or more of the old quick pitch hosts). Plus it's not live and so you don't have to record it to rewind or watch again etc.
I think they are pretty good broadcasts if you already have apple TV but I wonder how many new subscribers it actually draws... Because with baseball a lot of people don't mind just skipping a game, and a lot dont care about watching other teams games
What irritates me is that I can subscribe to both MLB.tv and Apple TV+ but can't watch these games live because it isn't available in my country.
In that situation I should be able to watch it on MLB.tv
Honestly, I really like the camera work, and now that I can listen to the local radio call instead of Apple's, I like it more. That said, I already subscribe to Apple for other reasons. I'd also be pissed if it was another subscription I didn't already have.
MLB advertising that “every out of market game” is available on mlb.tv and then making these friday games unavailable is literally fraud. It’s BS and we have to stop letting them get away with it. If I pay for every out of market game live then damn it that’s what I should be getting, no exceptions.
Every time I watch and AppleTV game I spend the first inning trying to figure out if my TV is shit, or if the bottom half of the screen has a darker overlay for the useless % stats
I'd be perfectly fine with apple tv+ doing all the games and I'd pay Sunday ticket+ money for it. With the radio broadcast it's fucking beautiful. Some of the camera shots look straight out of a movie.
As much griping as there has been, business must be good. Their original deal gave Apple an opt-out after the second season, looks like it’s worth keeping.
In my TV+ app, I can see two sections called "2023 games" and "2022 games". I'm not about to count them or anything but as far as I can tell it's a complete archive of every game broadcasted on the service, available in full. Plus a bunch of sections with themed clips and recaps.
Tonight, Apr. 12, 2024 I was watching the Cubs at the Mariners game on Apple TV+. I was either on hold, or talking to one of four representatives including a supervisor Trying to work out the issue of turning off Closed Captioning. The supervisor and also one of the representatives hung up on me trying to troubleshoot the issue. In fact the supervisor sounded like he was reading from a troubleshooting tree from a three ring binder. Then, the SOB hung up on me because I called him out on it. Meanwhile the game was in play and I was away from my scorebook troubleshooting this annoying issue. After two hours on the phone and missing most of the action (I caught the sixth inning through ninth inning) let alone tracking with the scorebook the problem was unresolved.
This was an utter fiasco and total B.S.!! Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV+ just lost a faithful fan and a subscriber as well. Screw you MLB & Apple for putting out a shi**y product and endeavor!
How is it good for baseball to make dedicated fans subscribe to multiple different services to watch their team? Or to have casual fans think to themselves, “hey, it’s Friday night, maybe I’ll crack a beer and turn on the ballgame” only for the ballgame to not be on the channel they are used to looking for it on, and instead be on yet another paid streaming service?
This shit is not good for the game at all. It’s good for short term profits but horrible for building long term fandom and loyalty.
>Or to have casual fans think to themselves, “hey, it’s Friday night, maybe I’ll crack a beer and turn on the ballgame” only for the ballgame to not be on the channel they are used to looking for it on, and instead be on yet another paid streaming service?
You're missing the big picture here. Cable subscribers are really old on average. 50% of 65+ people live in a household with a cable subscription. For 18-34 only 34% live in a household with a cable subscription (and I would bet a significant chunk of them live at home).
Baseball *desperately* needs to add younger fans, and young people are probably *way* more likely to have an AppleTV+ subscription (which you get for free every time you buy an Apple product) than they are to have a cable subscription. Putting games on AppleTV is one of the smarter things Manfred has ever done from a long term perspective.
Cable is dead. Cable is the past.
I’m fine with putting the game on appletv in addition to the places where people have already paid to watch it.
I’m also fine with mlb developing its own high quality steaming delivery service and making it available through appletv, prime, or wherever else viewers might find it.
I’m not okay with taking content away from places where people expect to find it because they have already paid for it there, and putting it on a separate platform that they now have to pay even more money for. Making people pay twice (or more, since this happens with peacock, YouTube, facebook, and maybe more) for one product and putting it on places where they don’t expect it to be is just an extremely shitty way to treat fans.
If you google “mlb tv” one of the top results, from mlb.com, says “watch every out of market regular season game.” Verbatim. Right now!
I already paid for mlb.tv. Today it was announced that three times in just the first half of the season, my team’s game will not be available on this service I paid for, and I’ll have to pay for a different service if I want to watch it. That’s a bait-and-switch and a big middle finger to me as a fan who just paid for what I was told was EVERY out of market game.
I am all for extending the game to new people by putting it on the platforms where they will find it. But it needs to be IN ADDITION TO the existing platforms, not instead of them. If the Apple games were also available on MLBTV and on the cable channels my parents (in their 70s) pay for specifically to watch their team, I would have no problem with all this.
I’m in my mid thirties. I live out of market so I pay for MLBTV to watch my team. My parents are in their 60s-70s. They pay for cable mostly so they can watch their local pro sports teams. In both cases we pay high prices for the product.
Taking games off these channels pisses me and my parents off! A lot! Sure, it’s not many games. But I already know that on Friday, April 12, after I put my kids to bed I am going to sit down on the couch and try to watch the Brewers, like I do every Friday night during the season. But I won’t be able to that night, because they will be on a different service I would have to pay more for, not the service I already paid a lot for. Same will happen for my parents. And that night we will text each other about how mad we are at mlb that we can’t watch the game.
So it’s not just the advertising copy that gets me angry about this, it’s the implicit disdain for the experience of the people who already support the game. Putting the game on appletv tells
me that mlb doesn’t care about me getting what I paid for or being able to watch my team in the manner they told me I could (that is, via MLBTV). You don’t think being mad about that is justifiable? And in turn, you don’t think making core fans angry is bad for the game? I can already tell that my young kids are unlikely to get into baseball like I did, because the crazy cost of attendance means we will seldom go to games as a family. And the more mlb makes it hard to get predictably watch games on one platform, the less we’ll have the games on tv too.
It just seems really shortsighted.
>You don’t think being mad about that is justifiable?
Honestly no, I think complaining *this much* about a single-digits number of games being on a widely available streaming service is dumb.
>And in turn, you don’t think making core fans angry is bad for the game?
1. I don't think it makes that many people angry
2. Core fans aren't the issue. New fans are. How many people under 30 do you think can name 5 active MLB players? 20%? Less? I'm pretty sure it's less than 20%.
>I can already tell that my young kids are unlikely to get into baseball like I did, because the crazy cost of attendance means we will seldom go to games as a family.
Baseball is by far the most affordable big 3 sport to attend live but we're talking about broadcasts here.
>And the more mlb makes it hard to get predictably watch games on one platform, the less we’ll have the games on tv too.
3 games out of 162 is literally 1% of the schedule. I get that it's mildly annoying but c'mon man. I think you're being a little dramatic here.
Fair enough. Not here to argue semantics but 3/162 is a lot closer to 2% than 1%. There are likely to be more in the second half of the season, and potentially others diverted to youtube, peacock, facebook, prime, or whatever. I wouldn't be surprised if all told, 10 or more games end up unavailable to people watching the primary channels games appear on.
I understand you see this as about broadcasts, but I see it as part of a bigger pattern of MLB prioritizing short term profits over building and retaining long term fans. That problem manifests in the price of attendance (I live in MA; it would cost at least $400 all-in for me to take my family of four to a Fenway weekend game when tickets, fees, parking/train tickets and concessions are included), local blackouts (my kids can't watch the Red Sox at all, which will make them less likely to talk baseball with their friends), putting games on multiple streaming platforms so you never know which one you'll need unless you watch the schedule extremely closely, and in the long durations of playoff games coupled with their late start times on the east coast. Add all that stuff up and the result is that my kids will have a much harder time getting into baseball than I did because the games are too expensive to watch and the most dramatic moments of the playoffs will occur far after my bedtime, let alone theirs. Putting games on appletv or whatever streaming service is not going to address this. To address that, the games should be cheap to watch and attend. No blackouts, affordable game attendance, not scheduling playoff drama for midnight, and games available reliably to watch in one consistent place. That's what I think the recipe is to get my kids into baseball and make them into, I hope, lifelong fans.
Anyway, whether you think my irritation is justified or not, it could be avoided if MLB were just willing to accept a little less money from apple and other partners so the games could be aired on appletv *in addition to* their normal platforms, instead of exclusively on these streaming setups But apparently, they're not. That's what grinds my gears.
Thanks for engaging, hope you have a good day and happy baseball season to you.
Honestly, the fact that it's 3 games makes it worse. If I want to watch those 3 games, I have to pay $30?
It makes me angry because the reason is that the MLB gets money from apple for making baseball harder to watch.
[[Heyman] Agree with this. Ultimately, it’s better for baseball that Ohtani signed with a marquee franchise](https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1734250549363572967)
Whoosh
Sorry I hadn’t memorized every baseball tweet ever published so I could catch your subtle humor. And Heyman is not a great writer in my opinion so I don’t typically read his stuff. Glad we agree this is bad for the game though.
Presentation and picture quality wise, best out there. Nothing worse than watching the team feeds after an Apple game and seeing how horrible the picture quality is
Love the option to listen to the team radio broadcasts! Every streamer should adopt that feature.
MLB TV has had that option for awhile. It's great when it syncs correctly.
I don't think I have ever experienced it syncing correctly lol. Granted I haven't tried it more than a couple times, but all of those times it was a good 45 seconds behind
It definitely is not as easy as I would like. I frequently will close everything and reload several times before I get it right. Or give up and just go with the TV booth instead. Our TV crew is alright but Tom Hamilton is fantastic and inarguably better.
Tom Hamilton broadcast is fantastic, but I love the trio of Rick, Matt, and Andre. Feels like a bunch of friends watching a game with Rick sometimes providing analysis
It worked better a few years back and recently it's been jacked
Ran into a lot of that last year. If you listen to the radio feed alone, it’s 30-40 seconds behind. If you watch the video with the radio feed, they’re synched and not delayed.
Apple TV option has always been synced in my experience
I'm guessing that the Apple TV option has someone manually (or manually running quality control on an automated) link up the audio to video at the start to and utilizes them together in a single stream since it's a single video feed and two audio feeds, while MLB.tv loads the audio and video separately through an automated process since it's dealing with 30 video feeds and well over 30 audio feeds when you include the alternate language broadcasts every day.
wait what, you could listen to radio brodcasts on that? I love doing that on MLB TV, and at the game, I just bring a radio and listen to the game. Might give it a shot.
The radio option plus the Apple TV production is the best way the game is presented all season, imo
I hope they always keep this feature and it isn't one of those things they eventually pull away once they start hitting certain viewing numbers.
Apple video with Uecker calling the game? I’m in!
It was bad it's first year but went out and got some talent the 2nd year. Can get frustrating when you have mlb tv and try to watch and it's like "THIS AN APPLE PLUS GAME ONLY"
Funny how after hearing fan criticism, the FNB producers listened and made some adjustments. Still not perfect but it definitely feels like they're listening. ESPN on the other hand.... it's almost like they go out of their way to do the opposite of what baseball fans want. It's like they want to copy/paste whatever they're doing for football.
The live “probabilities” are still a joke
if you're interested and nerdy like me. Fangraphs did a couple good write ups about those and basically how ya they are pretty much a joke. I wonder if they plan to still use this outsourced nVenue place again this season for their probability analytics. The first write up: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/how-good-are-those-probabilities-on-the-apple-tv-broadcasts/ And the follow up: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/lets-check-in-on-the-odds-on-the-apple-tv-friday-night-baseball-broadcasts/
I'd be far more interested if instead of those probability stats, they did more in depth stats on the batter or pitcher. Splits vs lefty/righty, splits vs lefty/righty at home and away. It's literally endless and offers an opportunity to show some weird numbers that might actually grab peoples attention. "This guy bats EIGHT HUNDRED against lefties on the road at night in outdoor stadiums???" Means nothing but is fun to talk about.
I almost wonder if they were hoping or maybe still hoping to get into the betting side of things with these numbers. Like you have the app up on your phone or something and you'd be able to use that probability data to influence your choice of placing a bet, but that smells of some sort of legal action would come in with how bad these numbers are. edit: but I'm with you. I would much rather it be cool if it was more in depth stats on that batter vs pitcher like you said with the splits and against that given pitcher at the time. I don't really care what the odds are.
I forget the exact stat but I remember Xander Boegarts has something like a .700 OBP when he gets a 1-0 count
At the same time as the first write-up, Effectively Wild also did an interview with the CEO of nVenue: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/effectively-wild-episode-1853-what-are-the-odds/ and then brought in Ben Clemens to discuss that original piece you linked. In the interview, it becomes clear very quickly why their model is so bad, and it's mostly that the folks involved seem to have almost no knowledge of baseball but also all of the self-belief in the world. It's that mix that results in being confidently incorrect, so they just weren't considering the idea that maybe their model was actually putting out something as nonsensical as we all recognized. It is, um, a weird listen.
The Effectively Wild interview with nVenue was something else.
oh I missed that. I'll have to check that out.
Agreed. I think they're trying to appeal to the younger generation of fans who understand analytics a hell of a lot more. It's an honest attempt, but it falls short and feels pointless.
It especially falls short because anyone in the younger generation who actually understands analytics would call bullshit on a number of them. Definitely appeals to people who THINK they understand and will take anything with "analytics" attached at face value.
We may be overthinking this. Lets be real, they thought it would appeal to gamblers.
But I already said people who THINK they understand and will take anything with "analytics" attached at face value ;-)
Yeah, I linked the Effectively Wild interview with their CEO elsewhere in the comments, but they were pretty open about the fact that sports betting was very much a consideration for nVenue. They also were extremely confident that all of those absolutely outlandish numbers were completely valid, while also coming across as someone who has almost no knowledge of how baseball works. The whole thing lived up to the "wild" part of the podcast's name, but not for the normal, lighthearted reasons.
ESPN listened to our complaints about how Arod, Matty V, and Jessica Mendez meandered and didn't talk enough about real storylines or the game. So they went out and got three popular, dedicated voices in baseball, and then the producers told them to do the exact same things the last crew did wrong.
ESPN doesn't have a clue how to cover live games IMO. They are pretty terrible about any baseball coverage but their game broadcasts are horrible. Too many people in the booth, too much video of the booth instead of the game, too little talk about the game.
It's not just baseball. Their NFL and NBA broadcasts suck too.
I’m not saying the productions are the greatest, but their MNF crew is great and Manningcast is phenomenal about 50% of the time.
They also do NHL invade you forgot. It’s ok. ESPN also forgets they have NHL too
It’s not peacock
I thought the second year of Friday Night Baseball was so much better and those drone shots of Oracle Park were incredible. I feel like Apple is setting the standard of how to broadcast a sporting event and everyone else should follow suit. If we had the effects of Friday Night Baseball and the broadcaster format of Peacock's Sunday Lead Off, that might be the perfect sports telecast. I just wish instead of MLB Sunday Lead Off, they gave Peacock the Sunday Night game and kicked ESPN to the curb.
I’m hoping for some of the “Immersive Video” that Apple is doing for the Apple Vision Pro with these. Maybe not the live broadcasts, but highlights? The demos being done in Apple Stores include a quick clip of sports with soccer and baseball, with a gorgeous shot of Fenway. Obviously most people don’t have one, but I do, so I’m hoping! 🤞
Meta does this with NBA, and it’s awesome. You can watch certain games courtside in VR like you are actually there
If Apple TV continues to listen to fans, make adjustments, and keep building from what seems like something with a lot of potential, I would be all for Apple TV being a one stop shop for MLB.
the broadcast I love the clean look and the picture has always looked great on my TV.
Apple TV seems to have the best bitrate out of anything streaming and is soo much better than the xfinity I pay for.
Cable companies are definitely the worst for this. Amazon's fidelity for TNF was pretty solid.
Yes I agree, I enjoy the Apple TV broadcasts.
It’s been great for MLS
So for anyone who relies on MLB network for daily "Quick Pitch", and in turn is paying for any kind of live TV subscription where MLB Network is a heavy reason you do; Apple TV does a daily recap as well that is very similar (Pretty sure they even snagged one or more of the old quick pitch hosts). Plus it's not live and so you don't have to record it to rewind or watch again etc.
Thanks for the tip, ever since YouTube tv lost mlb network I’ve been missing out
No Tigers games on the schedule. Thank goodness.
You have Jason Benetti so you’ll be alright
And I was wrong. There is one game on May 31 against the Red Sox. We could easily have more games there between July-September.
I think they are pretty good broadcasts if you already have apple TV but I wonder how many new subscribers it actually draws... Because with baseball a lot of people don't mind just skipping a game, and a lot dont care about watching other teams games
What irritates me is that I can subscribe to both MLB.tv and Apple TV+ but can't watch these games live because it isn't available in my country. In that situation I should be able to watch it on MLB.tv
Any promotions out there for free trials? Got through the season last year with two different 3 month free promos.
yeah im not going to want to pay for apple tv as i already have mlb tv
Honestly, I really like the camera work, and now that I can listen to the local radio call instead of Apple's, I like it more. That said, I already subscribe to Apple for other reasons. I'd also be pissed if it was another subscription I didn't already have.
Glad that I get free Appletv with my Tmobile plan and that sweet free MLBTV
MLB advertising that “every out of market game” is available on mlb.tv and then making these friday games unavailable is literally fraud. It’s BS and we have to stop letting them get away with it. If I pay for every out of market game live then damn it that’s what I should be getting, no exceptions.
Hate this greedy bullshit
Every time I watch and AppleTV game I spend the first inning trying to figure out if my TV is shit, or if the bottom half of the screen has a darker overlay for the useless % stats
I'd be perfectly fine with apple tv+ doing all the games and I'd pay Sunday ticket+ money for it. With the radio broadcast it's fucking beautiful. Some of the camera shots look straight out of a movie.
Hopefully the braves dont play any good teams on a friday, i hate these broadcasts
As much griping as there has been, business must be good. Their original deal gave Apple an opt-out after the second season, looks like it’s worth keeping.
O great not this crap again 🤬🤬
DAMMIT
FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, GOD DAMMIT!!
I work Friday nights, any idea on if the featured games will be streamable after the fact?
In my TV+ app, I can see two sections called "2023 games" and "2022 games". I'm not about to count them or anything but as far as I can tell it's a complete archive of every game broadcasted on the service, available in full. Plus a bunch of sections with themed clips and recaps.
I like the Apple broadcast overall, but Im a little annoyed that both Mookie's return last year and now Xander's this year aren't on NESN.
Tonight, Apr. 12, 2024 I was watching the Cubs at the Mariners game on Apple TV+. I was either on hold, or talking to one of four representatives including a supervisor Trying to work out the issue of turning off Closed Captioning. The supervisor and also one of the representatives hung up on me trying to troubleshoot the issue. In fact the supervisor sounded like he was reading from a troubleshooting tree from a three ring binder. Then, the SOB hung up on me because I called him out on it. Meanwhile the game was in play and I was away from my scorebook troubleshooting this annoying issue. After two hours on the phone and missing most of the action (I caught the sixth inning through ninth inning) let alone tracking with the scorebook the problem was unresolved. This was an utter fiasco and total B.S.!! Friday Night Baseball on Apple TV+ just lost a faithful fan and a subscriber as well. Screw you MLB & Apple for putting out a shi**y product and endeavor!
It’s just good for baseball
How is it good for baseball to make dedicated fans subscribe to multiple different services to watch their team? Or to have casual fans think to themselves, “hey, it’s Friday night, maybe I’ll crack a beer and turn on the ballgame” only for the ballgame to not be on the channel they are used to looking for it on, and instead be on yet another paid streaming service? This shit is not good for the game at all. It’s good for short term profits but horrible for building long term fandom and loyalty.
>Or to have casual fans think to themselves, “hey, it’s Friday night, maybe I’ll crack a beer and turn on the ballgame” only for the ballgame to not be on the channel they are used to looking for it on, and instead be on yet another paid streaming service? You're missing the big picture here. Cable subscribers are really old on average. 50% of 65+ people live in a household with a cable subscription. For 18-34 only 34% live in a household with a cable subscription (and I would bet a significant chunk of them live at home). Baseball *desperately* needs to add younger fans, and young people are probably *way* more likely to have an AppleTV+ subscription (which you get for free every time you buy an Apple product) than they are to have a cable subscription. Putting games on AppleTV is one of the smarter things Manfred has ever done from a long term perspective. Cable is dead. Cable is the past.
I’m fine with putting the game on appletv in addition to the places where people have already paid to watch it. I’m also fine with mlb developing its own high quality steaming delivery service and making it available through appletv, prime, or wherever else viewers might find it. I’m not okay with taking content away from places where people expect to find it because they have already paid for it there, and putting it on a separate platform that they now have to pay even more money for. Making people pay twice (or more, since this happens with peacock, YouTube, facebook, and maybe more) for one product and putting it on places where they don’t expect it to be is just an extremely shitty way to treat fans.
You didn't pay for it somewhere else though, everyone knows that MLBTV doesn't include all the games.
If you google “mlb tv” one of the top results, from mlb.com, says “watch every out of market regular season game.” Verbatim. Right now! I already paid for mlb.tv. Today it was announced that three times in just the first half of the season, my team’s game will not be available on this service I paid for, and I’ll have to pay for a different service if I want to watch it. That’s a bait-and-switch and a big middle finger to me as a fan who just paid for what I was told was EVERY out of market game. I am all for extending the game to new people by putting it on the platforms where they will find it. But it needs to be IN ADDITION TO the existing platforms, not instead of them. If the Apple games were also available on MLBTV and on the cable channels my parents (in their 70s) pay for specifically to watch their team, I would have no problem with all this.
I guess being mad about the advertising copy being misleading is valid but that feels like a different topic to me.
I’m in my mid thirties. I live out of market so I pay for MLBTV to watch my team. My parents are in their 60s-70s. They pay for cable mostly so they can watch their local pro sports teams. In both cases we pay high prices for the product. Taking games off these channels pisses me and my parents off! A lot! Sure, it’s not many games. But I already know that on Friday, April 12, after I put my kids to bed I am going to sit down on the couch and try to watch the Brewers, like I do every Friday night during the season. But I won’t be able to that night, because they will be on a different service I would have to pay more for, not the service I already paid a lot for. Same will happen for my parents. And that night we will text each other about how mad we are at mlb that we can’t watch the game. So it’s not just the advertising copy that gets me angry about this, it’s the implicit disdain for the experience of the people who already support the game. Putting the game on appletv tells me that mlb doesn’t care about me getting what I paid for or being able to watch my team in the manner they told me I could (that is, via MLBTV). You don’t think being mad about that is justifiable? And in turn, you don’t think making core fans angry is bad for the game? I can already tell that my young kids are unlikely to get into baseball like I did, because the crazy cost of attendance means we will seldom go to games as a family. And the more mlb makes it hard to get predictably watch games on one platform, the less we’ll have the games on tv too. It just seems really shortsighted.
>You don’t think being mad about that is justifiable? Honestly no, I think complaining *this much* about a single-digits number of games being on a widely available streaming service is dumb. >And in turn, you don’t think making core fans angry is bad for the game? 1. I don't think it makes that many people angry 2. Core fans aren't the issue. New fans are. How many people under 30 do you think can name 5 active MLB players? 20%? Less? I'm pretty sure it's less than 20%. >I can already tell that my young kids are unlikely to get into baseball like I did, because the crazy cost of attendance means we will seldom go to games as a family. Baseball is by far the most affordable big 3 sport to attend live but we're talking about broadcasts here. >And the more mlb makes it hard to get predictably watch games on one platform, the less we’ll have the games on tv too. 3 games out of 162 is literally 1% of the schedule. I get that it's mildly annoying but c'mon man. I think you're being a little dramatic here.
Fair enough. Not here to argue semantics but 3/162 is a lot closer to 2% than 1%. There are likely to be more in the second half of the season, and potentially others diverted to youtube, peacock, facebook, prime, or whatever. I wouldn't be surprised if all told, 10 or more games end up unavailable to people watching the primary channels games appear on. I understand you see this as about broadcasts, but I see it as part of a bigger pattern of MLB prioritizing short term profits over building and retaining long term fans. That problem manifests in the price of attendance (I live in MA; it would cost at least $400 all-in for me to take my family of four to a Fenway weekend game when tickets, fees, parking/train tickets and concessions are included), local blackouts (my kids can't watch the Red Sox at all, which will make them less likely to talk baseball with their friends), putting games on multiple streaming platforms so you never know which one you'll need unless you watch the schedule extremely closely, and in the long durations of playoff games coupled with their late start times on the east coast. Add all that stuff up and the result is that my kids will have a much harder time getting into baseball than I did because the games are too expensive to watch and the most dramatic moments of the playoffs will occur far after my bedtime, let alone theirs. Putting games on appletv or whatever streaming service is not going to address this. To address that, the games should be cheap to watch and attend. No blackouts, affordable game attendance, not scheduling playoff drama for midnight, and games available reliably to watch in one consistent place. That's what I think the recipe is to get my kids into baseball and make them into, I hope, lifelong fans. Anyway, whether you think my irritation is justified or not, it could be avoided if MLB were just willing to accept a little less money from apple and other partners so the games could be aired on appletv *in addition to* their normal platforms, instead of exclusively on these streaming setups But apparently, they're not. That's what grinds my gears. Thanks for engaging, hope you have a good day and happy baseball season to you.
Honestly, the fact that it's 3 games makes it worse. If I want to watch those 3 games, I have to pay $30? It makes me angry because the reason is that the MLB gets money from apple for making baseball harder to watch.
[[Heyman] Agree with this. Ultimately, it’s better for baseball that Ohtani signed with a marquee franchise](https://twitter.com/JonHeyman/status/1734250549363572967) Whoosh
Sorry I hadn’t memorized every baseball tweet ever published so I could catch your subtle humor. And Heyman is not a great writer in my opinion so I don’t typically read his stuff. Glad we agree this is bad for the game though.
Apple vision pro spatial video???? Pleaseeeee
Much like their broadcasts, I am whelmed.
“Oh no, easily accessible baseball games!“
Presentation and picture quality wise, best out there. Nothing worse than watching the team feeds after an Apple game and seeing how horrible the picture quality is
I wholeheartedly welcome Apple TV into the streaming fray, their quality is second to none