MLB REACHED A DEAL BUT IT'S NOT THE ONE YOU WERE EXPECTING!

If it is not enough to fight about money, shifts, larger bases, pitch clocks and luxury taxes, how about the owners bring in a new baseball streaming partner. With baseball seeking younger audiences, the rule is that you need to go where the youth are. And guess where they are—streaming services. At a company event on Tuesday, Apple TV+ announced that they struck a deal with MLB to stream double-headers on Friday nights starting this season.

"The broadcasts on Apple TV+ will include pregame and postgame shows and will not be subject to local broadcast blackout restrictions. They will be produced by MLB Network," reported ESPN. Initially the games will be free meaning without the need for an Apple TV+ subscription. And these games will be exclusively carried on Apple TV+, bypassing the team's regional networks.

According to ESPN, "MLB has been exploring selling a weeknight package of games with ESPN reducing its coverage of the regular season to 30 games, mostly on Sunday nights. Turner Sports will have games on Tuesday nights under a new rights deal that begins this season." 

Also part of the Apple-MLB deal will be a new series called "MLB Big Inning" which will be a weekday show for US fans as well as a livestream channel for those viewing in the US and Canada. With the lockout just under 100 days at this point, this new deal with Apple TV+ just pours salt in my wounds. I think this Tweet in response to Jeff Passan's post announcing the deal resonated most with me right now: "Can’t wait to pay $5 to watch the Mets get smacked 13-2 by the Pirates while Ted Lasso is in the booth asking why players don’t just kick the ball."

It's ironic that this is announcement comes today after my rant earlier this week regarding how baseball players and owners are wasting precious time, time that they can't get back. This senseless fight just needs to come to compromise, otherwise it doesn't matter how the game proceeds to transform itself to attract a younger audience. That audience was more concerned that Spotify was out for a few hours Tuesday afternoon than that Apple TV+ is going to carry baseball now. If the deal was with TikTok, maybe that would be different story.

So the short story is that MLB reached a deal. The longer part of this story is that they are continuing to strike deals for more exclusive access and of course money despite the fact that they cannot strike a deal with each other to actually play games. Another two weeks of games could be canceled due to the deadlock and as the New York Times reports, "If a deal cannot be reached, and a full 162-game season cannot be rescheduled, this would be the first time games were lost to a work stoppage since the 1994-95 players’ strike." In this case the only thing we will be watching once a week beginning this summer on Apple TV+ will be the third season of Ted Lasso. 

--Suzie Pinstripe
BYB Senior Managing Editor
Twitter: @suzieprof