Less is more. DIRECTV has announced the pricing for the 2017 season of its popular MLB Extra Innings package and it’s even less than last year, when prices were dropped for the first time. At press time, DIRECTV’s web site pegs the price at $172 for all out-of-market games for the season, which is just a tiny bit less than last year’s price. That’s quite a value, especially when you realize that MLB subscribers also get the MLB.TV package for free which allows you to stream all the games you get at home from your mobile device.
Considering that $172 will barely buy you two middling seats and a couple of beers at a single game, that’s really a pretty impressive deal.
Of course, MLB does have a rather ridiculous system of blacking out games which generally amounts to: if you’re within about 100 miles (sometimes even more) of a stadium and the game at that stadium isn’t sold out, you can’t watch the game on TV. You can usually watch the “away team feed” on DIRECTV but the home team feed is blacked out. It’s a holdover from the days when baseball’s team owners were — get this — afraid they wouldn’t make enough money from ticket sales. I know, that’s pretty ridiculous today, but apparently it was a concern at one point.
Even with the blackout rule you’re getting a lot of baseball for the money. One of my favorite things about baseball is the sheer number of games. It makes season-long strategy much more important than a game like football with only 18 or so games. And, of course every year I think and hope the blackout rule will be lifted.
For customers who find themselves unable to watch certain games because of rank stupidity on the part of the sports networks — I’m talking to you, Los Angeles — the games you’re missing on TV are sometimes available on the MLB streaming package, meaning you don’t have to sign up for some inferior cable TV service just to get the games you want.
If you’re interested in the MLB package, you can order it at DIRECTV.com/mlb or just call us at 888-233-7563 and we can get it added to your account!
