How do Territorial Blackouts work? Why do they exist?
Territorial blackouts exist to protect local Regional Sports Networks in your area. Regional Sports Networks pay for the exclusive rights to broadcast games in your area, and the blackouts are to protect them and their advertisers. Here’s a theoretical example: Let’s say Joe lives in Anaheim. The Boston Red Sox are playing at the Los Angeles Angels on a Monday night. ESPN decides to pick up the game and show it to a national audience. NESN has the rights to show Red Sox games in their market and is doing a broadcast. FSN West has the rights to show Angels games in their market and is also doing a broadcast. Joe tunes to ESPN-HD and finds the game blacked out. “No worries,” he thinks, “I have the Extra Innings package, I can watch it on NESN-HD, since FSN West isn’t doing an HD broadcast.” Joe then tunes to the MLB Extra Innings channel showing the NESN feed and finds it blacked out, too. Forced to watch the FSN West feed in SD, he logs on to DBS Talk and writes a nasty post screaming a
