It is thoughful, hits all the high points, gives the perspective of a baseball fan, and uses a Bruce Springsteen song for the title.
There's 57 channels and nothing's on...
I love the MLB Extra Innings package. I love TELLING people to buy it. I think it's a great deal for several reasons. First, I simply love baseball. I like watching a game other than the Rays game or our bi-weekly Red Sox/Yankees series getting shoved down our throats. Being a history buff, I love looking at the out-of-town ballparks and seeing rivalries that I can't always see with network or regional cable coverage. Being a sports broadcaster, I love seeing how other teams handle their broadcasts in other markets. I love listening to legendary voices like Vin Scully make a ho-hum game sound exciting. I like seeing the exciting plays during a game, and not during a 18-second recap on ESPN News. Finally, I love MLB Extra Innings simply because it's better than most of the garbage network TV has to offer during the summer. Dancing with the Stars?!? Are you kidding me? I'd rather watch the Royals and Indians any day over that mess.
So why would MLB move its very successful Extra Innings package from the 75 million cable subscribers to a DirectTV audience that is 1/5 of that audience? Well, this may come as a surprise to you, but it's all about... MONEY! Even though millions of people pay $175 every summer religiously to watch the out-of-market games Extra Innings offers, MLB just can't keep its eyes off a seven-year deal worth $700 million overall. DirectTV would also be the creator of the new MLB channel, but that's nothing since the main draw to Extra Innings is the games.
Do the math. That's $100 million per year, divided by 30 teams comes out to $3.3 million per year, per team. So for slightly more than a one-year deal for Mark Hendrickson, MLB has said, "Bend over if you want to watch us."
Thanks, but I'll pass. And I have a feeling millions more will as well if this deal does indeed happen.
...
I think the biggest problem with this whole idea, other than it stinks as a hasty money grab, is MLB thinks it is the king of the world when it comes to sports. I hate to inform them this, but they're wrong. Yes baseball is as American as mom and apple pie, and people are still showing up in droves to watch their favorite team even if amphetamines are in every coffee pot in a big league lockerroom, but MLB's ego is getting a bit too big. The reason why the NFL can get $700 million PER YEAR with DirectTV is because Americans love football. It doesn't matter if their home team is 3-8 come December, they still want to watch every game offered as the playoff push comes. In baseball, not so much. Even though there have been some exciting playoff races, and great rivalries born in the past five seasons MLB Extra Innings has been around, most people can fall back on typical summer things to do other than subscribing to DirectTV to see their favorite teams.Even though Extra Innings will likely go away to us cable subscribers, I can live without it. I'll just watch more Rays games, new episodes of "Dirty Jobs" and "Mythbusters", and the occasional Fox telecast which always seems to feature the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Braves, and Mets for some reason.
One argument that may be made by MLB is that fans can still watch the Extra Innings package on their computers at MLB.com.
I can't find the rebuttal now, but it went something like this on another blog. "I'm supposed to be on the computer for eight hours at work, come home and watch a three hour baseball game on my computer at home? No thanks."
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