I wonder whether the “Friday Night Baseball” on Apple TV will be blacked out for local markets like MLB.tv is?

@mjdescy @frankm from Apple's website:

Fans will be able to watch marquee games on Friday nights, free from local broadcast restrictions, across devices where Apple TV+ can be found,

@mjdescy @frankm it certainly sounds like there will be no blackout restrictions for the Apple TV games. You know, other than the fact you'll need to be subscribe to Apple TV+ to watch them. Which is a different restriction than local blackout restrictions.

@joelhamill @mjdescy Looks good. Hopefully they won't do the opposite and blackout MLB.tv on Fridays to "force" a national viewing audience.

@frankm @mjdescy It reads like Friday Night games will only be available on Apple TV+ and not on MLB.tv which is a shame.

www.mlb.com/news/mlb-...

@joelhamill @mjdescy Maybe, I don't think they are very clear. Personally, I have Apple TV so I can watch. And really, if you are sophisticated enought o use MLB.tv you will probably be fine figuring out Apple TV, particularly if the games are free. Where it will really be an issue is if they impede local TV broadcast, which can be over the air and available to many more people. I have a hard time believing that the big regional/team owned cable outlets like Marquee in Chicago or YES in New York would agree to not broadcast games. Technically they are not national broadcasts, so that could be the differentiator, but we will see.

@frankm @mjdescy Indeed. I completely agree with you. From what I've read it sounds like these games are not part of the local broadcasts similar to Sunday Night and Monday Night football.

I'm not well versed in the television rights of the local sports networks when it comes to baseball games though. Maybe MLB has some leeway to dictate which games are part of national coverage. I know Fox has rights to some Saturday and Sunday games over the local and regional sports networks.

It will definitely be interesting to see how it turns out this season.