For a few years (a few years ago) I subscribed to the MLB Extra Innings package on DirecTV. It allowed you to see a lot more games than you normally would. You can’t see everything, mind you, but you get to see a lot. A lot of fans are addicted to this package – I personally stopped getting it when I realized I was watching about 90% Rangers games, the cost for the packge didn’t make it worth it for me. But it’s worth it for others, and I bet a lot of those “others” are pissed off at the story MLB is cooking up with Extra Innings.
While the agreement hasn’t been formally signed and announced, everything points to the MLBEI package being a DirecTV exclusive product starting this season in a similar fashion to the NFL Sunday Ticket package (which I do subscribe to). Folks who got MLBEI on cable will be left out, unless they switch to DirecTV, of course. This is all about a cash grab, and it doesn’t strike me as the best strategy, unless they feel that the money they’d get from MLB would offset the loss of revenue from folks who will not switch to DirecTV.
One thing that is coming out of this will be a 24 hour baseball channel on DirecTV, starting in 2009 according to this article over at “The Biz of Baseball”. I’ve linked to these guys several times, and if you aren’t reading it regularly, you should. For some reason, as I got close to 40, I became a lot more interested in the business side of baseball. I still love the sport, love watching games, always will. But I love the backside stuff now a lot more than I used to, and TBoB is a great site for this kind of thing. Make sure and check out their updated article on the MLB Extra Innings deal, which has some nice details on the matter.