If you’re a fan of Major League Baseball, you have plenty of options when it comes to watching the games.
There are regular national broadcasts on ESPN, TBS, MLB Network, and the Fox Network. And when it comes to local broadcasts, Major League teams have deals with local cable channels, making most games available locally to fans of that particular team.
But if you’re a fan of baseball in general, or of a particular team that doesn’t play in your home city, you should look into an MLB.TV subscription. So, in this article, we’ll explain what MLB.TV is, how much it costs, and everything else you need to know.
What Is MLB.TV?
MLB.TV is a streaming package, offered directly by Major League Baseball, which allows fans to watch all out-of-market games either live or on-demand. This gives you the ability to watch the games not only on all devices but to pause and rewind them as well.
But those subscribing get more than just the regular season baseball games. Spring training games are also available as part of the subscription, and you’ll also get access to a huge trove of on-demand content.
This includes several documentaries, films about several recent World Series, vintage episodes of the old This Week in Baseball TV show, and old classic games. You can see a list of all the on-demand content available on MLB.TV if you subscribe to the service on the MLB.TV website.
MLB.TV also offers a popular feature called Audio Overlay. Geared towards the many fans who dislike their team’s announcers, it allows you to switch to the local radio crew instead of the TV announcers and, in some cases, tune into the game with the opposing teams’ broadcasters instead.
If you subscribe to MLB.TV, you also get live game stats and scores, as well as scoring play recaps on some supported devices.
How Much Does MLB.TV Cost?
There are three MLB.TV packages available to subscribers. The “All Teams” package costs $129.99 annually, giving subscribers access to games from every team in the big leagues. For a 162-game regular season for each team, that averages out to less than $1/game, although those subscribing to All Teams get a lot more than 162 games.
The “Single Team” package costs slightly less at $109.99/year, and allows access to all of the games and other content for one particular team. This is geared towards fans who live in one city, and are fans of a team in a different city. That way, if you’re most interested in watching those games, you don’t have to pay to watch the games of all the other teams in baseball.
The third package is the “Monthly” one, for $24.99/month, for fans who want to subscribe on a month-to-month or are interested in watching particular games on a particular month. The Monthly and All Teams package offer free trials, but the Single Team offer does not.
The regular baseball season lasts about seven months, meaning that the All Teams package costs about $18.50/month and the Single Team offering costs about $15.70/month. However, the on-demand content is available all year round, so it might be more accurate to divide those figures by twelve. On a yearly basis, that puts the price at $10.83/month and $9.16/month, respectively.
How to Get MLB.TV for Free
There is one way to get MLB.TV without paying those prices. T-Mobile offers a free season-long subscription to MLB.TV to its subscribers.
The offer can only be redeemed, before each season, on T-Mobile Tuesdays, but once you redeem it, you can watch MLB.TV on all participating devices.
How Is MLB.TV Different From MLB Extra Innings?
For many years, Major League Baseball has offered a package called MLB Extra Innings, which was first exclusive to DirecTV, and later became available through other traditional cable and satellite services.
Extra Innings is similar to MLB.TV, except for its method of distribution. Extra Innings is an add-on to cable and satellite packages, while MLB.TV is purchased by fans directly through Major League Baseball. However, some subscriptions to Extra Innings also include an MLB.TV subscription.
What You Can’t Watch on MLB.TV
Major League Baseball warns that all games on the MLB.TV package are subject to blackout. As baseball teams frequently get into disputes with TV providers that keep games blacked out for some fans, this is a concern for many baseball fans. As stated on the MLB website:
If a game is blacked out in an area, it is not available for live game viewing through MLB.TV.
Fans are not able to watch the live broadcasts of the home team in their market on MLB.TV. However, most of those games eventually become available on the service, at a later date.
Also, some nationally televised games are blacked out on MLB.TV, including several games throughout the season set to air on ESPN, and also the three games throughout April that are exclusively streamed on YouTube. That follows the deal the MLB had with Facebook to stream occasional games in 2017.
A list of those games is available on MLB.com.
Where to Stream MLB.TV
The MLB.TV package is available on various mobile and TV platforms, including iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, PlayStation and Xbox, in addition to Samsung smart TVs.
This means you can watch games on the go, as well as on your TV at home.
Why MLB.TV Is Worth It
Due to its convenience, portability, and extra features, MLB.TV is one of the better values of its kind when it comes to league-wide streaming packages.
The similar NFL Sunday Ticket costs much more, $293.94/season, and that’s for a sport with much fewer games and a season that’s three months shorter. NBA League Pass, at $199.99/year, also costs more than MLB.TV.
If you’re a big baseball fan, and you’re not content to wait around for the likes of Mike Trout, Fernando Tatis, Jr., and Mookie Betts to come around on your home team’s schedule, MLB.TV may be a good option for you.