Blog

For the past couple of years I have tried MLB.TV so that I can watch all of the Cubs games which are not available to me. The biggest problem is that I don’t live in the “market” for my favorite team. I would guess that most sports fans live in the region where they can watch all their team’s games on local TV. I cannot, because I live 1,715 miles away from Chicago. And because MLB is greedy and they care more about $$ than they do their fans, the only way I can reliably watch the Cubs is to pay $20/mo for their low quality service which gives me way more than I would rather pay for.My first complaint is that I would rather pay $5/mo for just the CUBS games. But MLB forces you to pay for ALL teams/games, and the lowest price available is $20/mo. STUPID!My second complaint is that the premium service sucks. This year I payed $25/mo for premium, and this gives you DVR like functionality, higher quality video (supposedly), plus you can watch away games with the home broadcast. This last bit means that if the Cubs are playing in St. Louis, I can watch the official Cubs broadcast instead of watching the official St. Louis broadcast. The trouble is that the software MLB chose for these premium features SUCKS rocks! I tend to watch a game after it has already started, or maybe hours later. So the DVR features were attractive. The trouble is that the software constantly crashes. Many times I was watching an in progress game 1 or 2 hours behind live. I would try to skip the commercial breaks by clicking the next half inning from the inning selector, but at this time the software would crash. It’s hard to explain this, but basically MLB.TV uses two different software packages to stream games. A basic package that just streams live (and at a lower quality). And a “premium” package which works through a plugin that you have to install (this is the software that gives you DVR features, and higher quality video). This latter piece is called NexDef. Well, NexDef crashes all the time, and when it does (if you are watching an in progress game), the software switches to live mode. What this means is that you may have been watching in the 3rd inning, but you now just jumped ahead to the bottom of the 9th inning. Fun, right? NOT!My third complaint is the MLB.TV website. Last month I wanted to downgrade my subscription from premium to basic (for the above stated reasons). But the stupid MLB website doesn’t even offer a downgrade option. I was forced to cancel my subscription, and then try to sign up for the Basic service from scratch. But the trouble is that their stupid site won’t allow this kind of transaction. Once you cancel your current subscription, the site lets you use the old subscription until the month that you paid for runs out. This would normally be a nice customer satisfaction feature, right? But what if the site then won’t tell you how long you have left on your subscription? And also, what if the site won’t let you sign up for new service until your old cancelled subscription expires? Yup, you guessed it. This is exactly how MLB.com works. So I am now stuck in limbo land, and my only option is to wait until the secret date when my old subscription expires and then signup again.My fourth complaint is the retarded exclusive agreement MLB signed with Fox for weekend games. 99% of weekend baseball games are BLACKED-OUT to MLB.TV subscribers. MLB agreed to give Fox sports exclusive rights to ALL MLB games on Saturday and Sunday that start after 11 PM pacific (or something like that). Well guess what? 99% of the weekend games start after that time. So unless your local Fox miraculously decides to broadcast YOUR game on your local Fox station (almost never happens), you just can’t watch it. Even though you are a PAID SUBSCRIBER to MLB.TV, you CAN’T WATCH THESE GAMES. This should be AGAINST THE LAW!I would NOT recommend MLB.TV to anybody I know. But the trouble is that if you are a true fan of a team outside of your local TV market, MLB.TV is your ONLY option (aside from watching the handful of games a year that might show up on ESPN/Fox). Thanks MLB for screwing your fans as you greedily pursue more money to add to your already fat purses.