I'm sick of supporting your obsolete business model

February 25, 2009 8:31 AM

Love baseball. Hate paying for cable. What now?

I'm about this close to being ready to give Time Warner Cable the boot- (almost) everything we watch is readily available online, either free or cheap.

The problem? I'm a Yankees fan, and they own their own network (YES), which broadcasts ~80% of their games. AFAIK, MLB.com still respects local blackout restrictions, and it just won't be purdy on my big HDTV.

Is there any way to get this content to my TV in HD, live, without a cable/satellite subscription?

posted by mkultra to technology (11 comments total)

If their business model is in fact obsolete, the space below this post will contain instructions on how you can get this content live, in HD, without paying for it. It will not.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 8:44 AM on February 25

Can you try FIOS (linked to my zip code in NYC - they offer YES)? I'm not sure if you're saying that you don't want to pay for anything at all? Or specifically Time Warner and Directv?

Is it the paying for content? Or Time Warner specifically? If so, what's wrong with either FIOS or Directv?
posted by jourman2 at 8:46 AM on February 25

The short answer is no.

The long answer is no, but. If you wanted to pay for MLB.tv premium and had a way to connect your computer to your TV, that could work. Of course, this would also require you to utilize a proxy service to get around the MLB blackout rules, which is not actually legal. So I can't recommend it. Just sayin'.

Rumor has it that MLB is going to "revisit" their blackout rules after the 2009 season, but we'll see what that does.
posted by pdb at 8:57 AM on February 25

You could get a season of MLB TV (HD quality!), but it's still pretty expensive at $110 for the year. You'd also need to figure out how to display HD computer content on your television.
posted by themadjuggler at 8:59 AM on February 25

FIOS isn't available. Besides, I'm more looking to get out of paying a high flat rate for content- nothing personal against TWC other than their criminally awful customer service and billing departments. Between Netflix (+Xbox), Hulu, and iTunes, the à la carte cost of programming makes more and more sense.
posted by mkultra at 9:10 AM on February 25

Got it - the only a la carte live media provider I know thats available at all is the Internet - and as people have mentioned mlb.tv won't be available in the local market area/won't be that great of a quality anyway.

So to me looks like your options are to

1 - Just get the cheapest cable/satellite package out there (YES will most likely be included).
2 - go without cable and just watch whatever games are available on broadcast tv (for the ESPN games you might be able to get it on ESPN 360).
3 - sign up for mlb.tv and figure out a way around the proxy.
posted by jourman2 at 9:36 AM on February 25

*around with a proxy
posted by jourman2 at 9:37 AM on February 25

This doesn't meet your requirement to use your own TV, but how about watch games at a bar?
posted by bdc34 at 10:10 AM on February 25

I can confirm, from first-hand experience, then proxying around blackout restrictions on mlb.tv works like a charm. If this was something you planned on doing regularly, I would sign up a piece of a virtual server (hopefully one whose IP puts it in, say, Texas) so that you wouldn't find yourself out of luck if a public proxy ever goes down. You could probably find a suitable one for about 10 bucks a month, which, when paired with MLB.tv premium, should bring you under $200 for the whole season. Knowing NYC cable prices, it seems like you'd come out ahead in the deal.

But yes, the quality wouldn't be crystal-clear HD. Probably acceptable, depending on how picky you are, but to be on the safe side, I'd sign up for a trial during Spring Training, (if they're offering one this year, I'd check but I'm blocked at work) and make a judgment call based on that.
posted by SpiffyRob at 10:44 AM on February 25

TV Ants + the appropriate cables to plug your computer into the TV. I'm at work so can't find the exact links, but googling around should be fine; the specific links to each game are in the forums each day before it starts. People always mirror the Yankees games.

Not HD, but it will be free and live (well... a few second delay. don't check ESPN or you'll see the results of the next pitch).

This is what I did to watch the Yankees last season when my roommates temporarily decided that cable was against our liberal anti-capitalist sensibilities. I was able to watch the implosion of the rotation, the lack of hitting and the glorious return of Sir Sidney Ponson, all for free!
posted by ScotchRox at 1:47 PM on February 25 [1 favorite]

If you want HD, you're just going to have to pay TW/Verizon/DirecTV for it. No way around that. If you're willing to settle for internet stream, lots of sports can be had on the gray market. But it ain't HD...
posted by jckll at 4:32 PM on February 25