OPINION: A look at sports broadcasting from an outsider

I secretly love sports. At least, I think I would like them. As a nerdy and somewhat chunky kid turning into a still-nerdy but way more chunky adult, there’s a reason why I didn’t grow up with them. But as I settle into being an adult, I’ve been catching major league games from time to time.

Why do I love this so much? I’ve asked myself the question as I watch slow-motion replays of athletes silently screaming at nothing or possibly at whoever is witnessing them. I think it’s an offshoot of the concept of performance. There’s something very special in witnessing the human moments of sports that scratches my need for narrative cohesion.

I have a lot of problems with how sports are broadcast in this country. It’s a culture issue and a broadcast issue, but I have to express some of my complaints as I settle more into this new world. Forgive me if I’m ignorant, but as an outsider I want to see changes.

There are a lot of games. Hundreds per team for the NBA and MLB, which makes curation a tricky issue. Many people tend to just watch one team and only a couple sports, but my greedy personality always wants to watch every league. This is a problem when both the NBA and NHL have almost the exact same schedule.

What’s kind of nice about those cable deals ESPN and TNT tend to have is having a curated slice of games. I’m sure most of their selections are based on some algorithm rather than what the most important games are, but as someone still trying to find which teams I want to support, it’s nice sometimes. Too bad those streaming packages for live TV cost an arm and a leg.

YouTube TV was nice to use, but that cost was just too high for me. Genuinely, it felt like I couldn’t get a live TV package without feeling like I needed to change my lifestyle. I’ve lived without live TV for well over six years; it’s a bit difficult to change that, especially if streaming services these days feel so much easier.

This year, I wanted to follow a baseball team. No reason in particular, but I think with the amount of games available I wouldn’t be too stressed about missing games. Because of my phone plan with T-Mobile, I actually got the MLB full-season package for free. I could pick any team I wanted and watch almost all of their games. Pretty sweet deal, at least until I learned about blackouts.

The Major League Baseball blackout rules are insane. Frankly, all blackout rules are insane, but the MLB has the craziest. A blackout is where regional broadcasts for local teams are barred in favor of a specific team’s local broadcast priority and to drive stadium attendance. There’s a problem though, and if you’ve lived in Iowa, it’s one you know.

Iowa doesn’t have a major sports team. We have affiliates like the Iowa Wild and the Iowa Cubs, but those don’t receive the same type of coverage as the tippy top of major league competition. Often, Iowans look to whatever’s close by. I’ve lived with fans of the Minnesota Vikings and Wild, Chicago Bears, Bulls, Blackhawks and Cubs, Kansas City Royals and Chiefs and Green Bay Packers.

Here’s the problem with blackouts - they reach farther than they should. Despite many MLB teams being a multi-hour drive for Iowans, the state has six teams completely blacked out. Why? Who knows. Iowa is the only state with this many blackouts. Even California which has five teams at least separates them by region. What is going on in Iowa? So much for the field of dreams.

The Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals and Minnesota Twins are all blacked out. That’s 20% of the league, which means 20% of all MLB games are impossible to watch, even with the MLB’s season package through streaming.

When I used YouTube TV, only one of those teams was carried as a RSN, and it wasn’t a good deal. I wouldn’t subject a full season’s worth of Chicago White Sox games on my worst enemy.

I probably would be a fan of the Cubs if it wasn’t for these blackouts. I like the affiliate connection and they seem good this year. But, with no RSN held by TV streaming services and the blackout rules, I’m lost.

Instead, I’ve picked up being a fan of the Toronto Blue Jays (it’s been a decent season so far despite some awful fielding recently) half in protest of these blackouts. It’s the only MLB team not to have any blackouts in the United States, and I couldn’t be happier. Even when visitors from “local” teams visit and give me the blackout restriction (27/162 games this season), I can at least know it’s not the fault of my beautiful jays.

I’m greedy, but I’m also a realist. Major league sports are entertainment; maybe I shouldn’t be so concerned about a price tag when it’s practically a luxury. The fact I can watch a handful of millionaires play a ball game in Toronto from my living room in Iowa is an astounding feat of human ingenuity.

It’s the stories I care about. Broadcasting teams do a lot of the work parsing a game into something consumable. I have a kinship with sports commentators because they’re always passionate and elevate their broadcast to something exciting.

It’s people. I’ll make jokes about Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s 14-year $500 million contract (he hadn’t hit a home run at that point in the season), but watching him dance at first base is special. On Sunday, he spiked his bat into the dirt and yelled because he knew he hit an easy-to-catch fly ball. The fact I can witness that a country’s distance away is something special.

It’s addicting, and I just wish there wasn’t so many hurdles to get to that moment.