Extra Innings Package only on DirecTV?

So MLB is apparently going to sign a deal with DirecTV giving that provider exclusive rights to the Extra Innings package.  My colleague over at Bad Altitude has a long post about it, which mostly reminds me why I hate the NFL, but does raise some good points.  I'm mostly indifferent, as I subscribe to MLB.TV rather than Extra Innings (I'm around my computer much more often than I'm around my TV) but I do see the problems with such a deal.

Many people simply can't get DirecTV.  Some, like me, are too transient to invest in a relatively expensive satellite dish.  The DirecTV service may not be as expensive as cable (I haven't looked into it), but it's certainly more expensive to buy a satellite dish than to get cable.  In addition, when you're like me and have only lived in your current place for six months, and are going to move again in another six months, what's the point?  Other people live in subdivisions with restrictive covenants that don't allow satellite dishes.  That's frankly your own fault for moving into a neighborhood with such a covenant, but this isn't the place for my various social commentaries (there are many.)

It's strange, though, that baseball has been unable to take advantage of its unique position in the sporting world.  From roughly the end of June until the end of August, MLB is the game.  Football, baseball, and hockey are all in their offseasons.  Baseball is slowly devolving into a niche sport, however, much like its non-football brethren.  It's sad, really, but perhaps baseball's greatest disadvantage is that it's played every day of the week.  In our busy world, once-a-week sports like football and NASCAR (which somehow is the second most-watched sport in America, despite the fact that, I don't know, it's incredibly boring) are easy to follow.  Following your favorite NFL team or NASCAR driver basically only involves sitting down on the couch for three hours on a Sunday afternoon.  Following baseball is so strenuous an exercise that only the most diehard fans can do it; for roughly six months out of the year, your team plays virtually every day, with only one day off per week.

The real problem with the DirecTV deal?  As I mentioned earlier, this actually makes baseball even harder to watch.  The NFL does this, too, but the NFL gets away with it because the NFL has a decent national TV schedule.  Every Sunday afternoon, you get three NFL games on the major broadcast networks (Fox and CBS), the Sunday night game on NBC, and the Monday night game on ESPN.  Of the fifteen or sixteen games every week, you can watch five of them without subscribing to the Sunday Ticket package (only on DirecTV.)  If you have a "local" team, you're going to see every one of their games.  The NFL, then, gets away with giving DirecTV exclusive rights to its Sunday Ticket package because there's already enough football on TV for most fans.  Sunday Ticket is only for the true diehards, or fans who don't live in their team's home market.

Baseball, on the other hand, has a pretty shoddy national TV package: the Wednesday night game on ESPN, the Saturday afternoon game on Fox (which, for some reason, isn't on all season), and the Sunday night game on ESPN, and occasionally a couple of other games scattered throughout the week on ESPN.  Even the Cubs and Braves, who formerly broadcast most of their games on national networks (WGN and TBS, respectively), are now moving many of their games to local networks or the regional Fox Sports network.  So that's four or five of roughly ninety games a week that are on national TV.

Why is this a problem?  Well, several reasons.  For one, the NFL does a much better job of farming out its "national" games (the Sunday night/Monday night games) so that a few teams don't dominate them.  The Yankees and Red Sox mostly dominate the Fox and ESPN national broadcasts.  Second, sheer numbers dictate that even without the Sunday Ticket package, you've got a pretty good chance of seeing your team.  If you live in your team's market, you're guaranteed to see it.  If you don't, you've got roughly a one-third chance of seeing your team's game one week through sheer chance.  Five of sixteen is a lot greater chance than five of ninety.  A Rockies fan who lives in, say, Tennessee may go all year without seeing his team without an Extra Innings or MLB.TV package.  A Broncos fan in Tennessee does not have such problems; maybe you miss a few games without the satellite package, but you can still catch your team a few times a year.

The final problem is that this still doesn't address MLB's "local market" problems.  Extra Innings and MLB.TV don't allow you to pick up your team's games if you live in what's defined as their local market.  These local markets have little to do with the ability to go to the game; Nashville is in the Reds' local market even though it's four hours from Cincinnati, so it's not as though I could just go to a Reds game on a whim.  The problem with this is that different teams manage this differently.  The Yankees and Red Sox have done a great job with this with, respectively, the YES Network and NESN.  On the other hand, the Reds do a terrible job.  Nashville's cable company occasionally broadcasts the feed from Fox Sports Ohio on Fox Sports South, but they don't carry every game.  While I'm not a Reds fan, MLB.TV and Extra Innings do black out their games in Nashville -- a serious annoyance for me when they're playing the Rockies and the Nashville network decides not to pick up the game.

Baseball, come on.  If you want your place back as king of all American sports, why not make it so that people can watch your games without forking over half their mortgage?  Why not make it so that I can see more than five games a week without buying DirecTV?  (Yeah, I know, I have MLB.TV, but some people don't have a broadband connection.)  Don't try to be like the NFL.  The NFL is king right now, and they can do whatever they want.  Be like the NBA: they know they're not the king, but at the same time they don't actively try to alienate people from their game.