Where’s the game? Shifting TV and streaming models frustrate Orioles fans – The Denver Post

Steve Weiner’s Orioles-watching routine was as predictable as the seventh-inning stretch. Or so he thought.

In this most promising of seasons, the Pikesville retiree takes comfort in the summerlong habit of settling in to watch games on a known network with broadcasters as familiar as old friends. But this season, with a half-dozen Orioles games having shifted from the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network to streaming networks — and the traditional cable TV sports model in transition — Weiner and many other fans feel like the diamond is shifting under their feet.

On a typical evening, Weiner will sit with his wife on their reclining love seat, turn on MASN and watch the games on their flat-screen TV. Except that on a recent Friday, Weiner learned the Orioles-Kansas City Royals contest was available only on the Apple TV+ streaming channel, while MASN showed kickboxing and other “fight sports.”

In a fighting mood himself, Weiner, 71, dashed off a complaint to the Orioles, closing the email “Yours in Disgust.”

With Major League Baseball’s local TV networks in flux, a half-dozen Orioles games this season have migrated to Apple TV+ or the Peacock streaming platform, including Sunday on Peacock and July 7 on Apple TV+, both against the Minnesota Twins. Baltimore doesn‘t show up again on Peacock’s schedule, but Apple TV hasn’t yet announced its August and September games.

But the issue is bigger than the Orioles and MASN, of which the team is the majority owner. From New York to Los Angeles, fans are complaining that they can’t always access their team’s games, don’t know where to find them or miss the cadence of the announcers who usually call the games.

The moves to Peacock and Apple TV+ follow decisions not by the Orioles, but by Major League Baseball, which says its broadcast strategies must reflect its audience’s evolving tastes.

MLB has in recent years accelerated its social media efforts, shortened games with a pitch clock, and taken other measures to attract more viewers, particularly younger ones. It says it knows younger fans — who have often avoided or ditched traditional cable models — believe there are too many restrictions on streaming games on their phones. Like many similar networks, MASN requires fans to subscribe to a cable company or satellite package before they can watch on their phones.

It’s not unusual for sports leagues to shift national broadcast partners. But the Orioles (and the Washington Nationals) have been available for years on MASN, a regional network attuned to those particular teams and the Baltimore-Washington region.

Longtime fans — particularly those unaccustomed to streaming — say the latest changes feel different because they require more than simply changing channels to find their team.

For Weiner and other fans determined to follow the rising fortunes of the Orioles, 48-30 as of Tuesday, on the field, sorting out the evolving landscape can be as confusing as the infield fly rule.

“I’ve been suffering through terrible teams for too many years to not be able to watch now,” said Julie Saxenmeyer, 47, of Towson.

Weiner’s June 10 email to the team said: “As Oriole fans, we shouldn’t have to pay Apple TV to watch our games.”

The response from the club’s Fan Services Team, which Weiner shared with The Baltimore Sun, said in part: “As part of an effort to expand the reach of baseball, MLB is working with several streaming partners to feature games. Apple TV does offer a free trial, which allows you to watch for free. Once your free trial is up, you will need to cancel your subscription, or you will begin to be charged for their service.”

Apple TV+ costs $6.99 per month. Peacock’s most popular plan is $4.99. And, while TV broadcast and streaming options can be limited, all Orioles games air on the radio on WBAL-AM.

The Orioles declined to comment for this article.

Karyl Leggio, a Loyola University Maryland finance professor, sympathizes with fans, while saying this season’s inconveniences amount to rumblings before a storm.

“We’re about to enter a period of tremendous instability,” Leggio said. “We’ve had decades of cable subscribers subsidizing sports watching. As we’ve had millions of people cut the cords, we have fewer subsidies.”

The “subsidies” come from cable subscribers whose packages include sports channels, whether they watch them or not. More viewers dropping cable — often in favor of streaming services — means less money is available to pay regional sports networks to distribute games.

Many younger fans prefer streaming to cable because they can target specific programming and more easily watch on a phone, laptop or tablet.

That’s at least partly why MLB is making deals with subscription streaming services such as Peacock and Apple TV+.

“They’re dipping their toe into that market,” Leggio said. “They’re testing that market to see what the appetite is for streaming games.”

Under the deals, Apple TV+ offers Friday night doubleheaders and Peacock carries the first MLB game of the day on Sundays.

While it’s too early to assess the games’ popularity on those platforms, San Diego State University adjunct marketing professor Miro Copic said new ventures typically take time to catch on.

“Even the NFL really struggled from the transition to Amazon Prime [in 2022]. Their ratings were much lower than the traditional Thursday night ratings,” Copic said.

As of late June, the Los Angeles Angels were scheduled to appear seven times combined on Apple TV+ and Peacock during the season. The Orioles are on six times and multiple teams are on five times.

The Orioles are considered an attractive choice for national packages because the players are young and exciting, according to Major League Baseball, which announced the streaming initiatives last year.

With a variety of options, MLB officials say the league is seeking to grow its fan base while accommodating users of cable and streaming apps. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

Major league teams rely much more than their NFL counterparts on local revenues such as television money. The success of MASN is important to the Orioles’ ability to pay their star players and attract new free agents.

The Orioles have a majority stake in MASN, although the club recently lost a court appeal and had to pay $99.2 million to the Nationals after the Washington team argued it hadn’t been receiving fair market value for its broadcast rights.

To broaden its appeal, MASN began offering a mobile app a few years ago.

“Fans who have cut the cord thought they would finally have a way to purchase and watch their local baseball team,” said Orioles fan Joe Weiner, 40, of Westminster, who is Stephen Weiner’s son. “While the MASN app works great to stream the games, you have to have a cable subscription to use it, which goes against what cord-cutters are looking for.”

Joe Weiner and other fans also complain that buyers of the $119.99 per year MLB.TV package — which grants access to out-of-market games — only allows them to stream Orioles’ games when a fan is outside the team’s television market, which stretches from Pennsylvania to North Carolina.

Major league teams, networks and distributors have long worried that streaming local games could diminish the value of existing TV deals. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred has often said he wants to eliminate local blackouts once the league figures out the economics.

In late May, MLB lifted the blackouts for San Diego Padres games when it began producing the team’s games. The league took over after Diamond Sports Group, a subsidiary of Hunt Valley-based Sinclair Broadcast Group, missed a payment to the team.

Diamond Sports, which airs games for more than a dozen MLB teams, filed for bankruptcy reorganization in March, burdened by more than $8 billion in debt. Sinclair bought the regional sports networks for $10.6 billion in 2019, but it was hit hard by pandemic-related disruptions and by fans moving away from traditional cable TV.

“To me, baseball is behind the times when it comes to streaming and blackout rules,” said Joe Weiner. Weiner says he doesn’t have cable and subscribes to MLB.TV’s out-of-market plan, which he hopes will one day allow him to stream his favorite team’s games.

“Baseball for years has wanted to expand their viewership and reach younger audiences, but are constantly finding ways to put roadblocks in the way that prevent younger viewers from watching their product,” he said.

MLB says it is doing is best to adapt.

Noah Garden, MLB’s chief revenue officer, said in a May 31 statement that the league is using its experience with producing Padres games “to re-imagine the distribution model, remove blackouts on local games, improve the telecast, and expand the reach of Padres games by more than 2 million homes.”

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