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directv baseball blackouts

7

70sdj

Does anybody have any info about a change in Directv's blackout policy on the baseball package.
Suddenly last night, the first game back after the all star break, the Boston pre and post games shows were blacked out. They have never been in the past.
Is there any way to find out from someone other than the so called customer service reps answering the phones in Asia?
Thanks for any help from anybody.
 
That's a good question...baseball's (and not DirecTV's) blackout policy in itself is a weird situation. The service providers don't really have much say on the blackout policies that these sports leagues have instituted, all they do is enforce the blackouts. Of course, I can understand the live blackouts, to protect the Extra Innings package, but to blackout replays (and like you mentioned, the pre and post shows) is really dumb. Last season, they let most of the NESN Red Sox game replays broadcast in the clear. Now, all replays across the RSNs are blacked out, even the classic games that are shown every now and then.

There's an article on Yahoo Sports this week that says that Bud Selig plans to change up the blackout policy (didn't say when), after he got blacked out of an out-of-market game he was watching.
 
Thanks for the added info.
I finally got a supervisor at Directv that actually knew what he was talking about, and he found that the problem this week was somebody had programmed a computer ass backwards and pre and post were blacked out while the game was all that was sent through. Crazy.
He did say the computer people don't work on the week-ends so it might be Tuesday or Weds before the problem was taken care of. He however gave me 3 free months of Showtime for my trouble. I guess second prize is 6 free months!
 
I noticed something odd on Directv this weekend. On Saturday both WPIX and WGN were showing the Mets/Cubs game with no blackout on WGN here in the NYC area. Today YES and WGN were both showing the Yankees/White Sox game and the game was blacked out on WGN.
 
ansky212 said:
I noticed something odd on Directv this weekend. On Saturday both WPIX and WGN were showing the Mets/Cubs game with no blackout on WGN here in the NYC area. Today YES and WGN were both showing the Yankees/White Sox game and the game was blacked out on WGN.
Click to expand...

It's because the Yankees were at home while the Mets were on the road. Superstations are only blacked out in the home market if the Cubs/White Sox/Braves are the visiting team.
 
Not to beat a dead horse on this blackout thing, but something is wrong at either NESN or Directv.
The NESN people are blaming Directv, and Directv says it is a NESN protocal change that has suddenly blacked out pre and post game programming. In any case both have been flooded with calls today. We will find out tonight at 6EDT if anything has been resolved.
 
70sdj said:
Not to beat a dead horse on this blackout thing, but something is wrong at either NESN or Directv.
The NESN people are blaming Directv, and Directv says it is a NESN protocal change that has suddenly blacked out pre and post game programming. In any case both have been flooded with calls today. We will find out tonight at 6EDT if anything has been resolved.
Click to expand...

It's really neither the fault of NESN nor DirecTV, the blame goes on to MLB, althought I did have a similar experience. Back in the preseason, an Angels-Dodgers game was blacked out on FSN West, and I live in the Los Angeles market. I called those idiots at DirecTV and asked them why the game blacked out, especially since I live in the home market of both these teams. Obviously, the customer service rep gave me the run-around and told me (obviously reading from a prepared statement) about the MLB territorial blackout policy. A couple days later, an Angels-Mariners game from Seattle was blacked out for me as well (and this is during the opening week of the season, and they offer free preview weeks a few times a year), so I had to watch to the FSN Northwest feed instead of my home market FSN West broadcast. They finally cleared it up the following day.
 
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