I’ve got opening night tickets for the Athletics/Mariners opener next Monday, and once again, baseball is beginning to creep into my brain. I’m an XM radio subscriber largely because they broadcast pretty much every MLB game, and I enjoy listening to the play by play while driving around. Last year I also had a lot of fun with the very good iPhone app, which includes streaming audio of every game, which extends my ability to listen to live games.

So, with the new season, I was considering the possibility of adding MLB.TV and get video streaming. It seems like a very nice package, and costs about $120 for the entire season. They advertise:

Seems like a good pretty good deal. I like to track the A’s, and there are other teams/games I would certainly watch. The only problem with it is that it is false advertising.

You can’t actually watch 2,430 games live because of blackout restrictions. I’m in Northern California, where according to MLB both the Athletics and the Giants are blacked out. And not just for games played locally, but even away games. In other words, MLB.TV doesn’t help me see even a single game for the two teams that play locally, even when they aren’t playing locally, or even if they aren’t being broadcast locally at all.

But it doesn’t even stop there: there are lots of Saturday and Sunday blackouts too. Live games starting after 1:10 ET and before 7:05ET are blacked out in the entire United States. I dunno about you, but those are kind of the premium baseball watching times for me. The fact that I can’t use my premium package to watch live baseball then seems pretty damned lame.

Yes, you can watch them on demand. As long as you demand them later.

This is ridiculous. I want to spend money to watch these games, but the MLB is apparently doing all they can to keep from delivering the product which every single baseball fan wants.

Sorry MLB.TV, I’m keeping my $120 for now.

MLB.TV. Baseball Everywhere. | MLB.com: Subscriptions.