Special to Sports News Highlights

(SNH) — Few things are as complicated in sports these days then how to watch a Major League Baseball game from the team in your hometown.

Television has played a key role in baseball for decades, dating back to the 1930s when W2XBS aired a Cincinnati Reds-Brooklyn Dodgers doubleheader in 1939. Through the 1950s and 1960s baseball on TV expanded on various platforms with national games of the week, broadcasts of playoff games and the World Series. The trend continued and baseball broadcasting boomed in the 1970s and 1980s with more games than ever before on national TV.

MLB was a major part of early ESPN programming, which helped give the network countless hours of broadcast material. Super networks like WGN in Chicago and WTBS in Atlanta helped put Cubs and Braves games on a national level previously unheard of. Fox leveraged its networks to broadcast more games at one point and MLB created its own network to broadcast games.

With all the options, one would think you could turn on TV and baseball would magically appear.

Sadly, that’s not the case.

There are so many networks, so many regional sports channels, so many streaming services that if want to watch a Major League Baseball game for the team in your area, you have to jump through figurative hoops to do so. It’s frustrating.

This week, another hit to the fan’s baseball gut happened when Comcast and its Xfinity networks announced it no longer has the rights to broadcast games owned by Bally’s, the regional sports network owned by Diamond Sports Group. For a dozen major league teams – including Detroit, Atlanta, Cincinnati, St. Louis and San Diego – that means if you live in those cities and subscribe to Comcast you do not have the ability to watch your local team on TV.

No doubt it’s a blow to MLB.

Comast has 13.6 million subscribers.

“We have been very flexible with Diamond Sports Group for months as they work through their bankruptcy proceedings, providing them with an extension on the Bally Sports Regional Networks last fall and a unilateral right to extend the term for another year, which they opted to not exercise,” Comcast said in a statement. “We’d like to continue carrying their networks, but they have declined multiple offers and now we no longer have the rights to this programming.”

Diamond responded, of course.

“It’s disappointing that Comcast rejected a proposed extension that would have kept our channels on the air and that Comcast instead pulled the signals, preventing fans from watching their favorite local teams. Comcast has refused to engage in substantive discussions despite Diamond offering terms similar to those reached with much larger distributors of ours. We are a fans-first company and will continue to seek an agreement with Comcast to restore broadcasts, and at this critical juncture for Diamond, we hope that Comcast will recognize the important and mutually beneficial role Diamond and RSNs play in the media ecosystem.”

Is anyone at MLB paying attention?

Commissioner Rob Manfred has so far been silent on the Comcast-Diamond dispute. Manfred holds his own hopes. In February, he announced that MLB wants to put together its own digital package to stream about half of teams’ games.

MLB.TV is a great streaming platform for baseball fans – as long as you don’t want to watch your local team. Those games are blacked out.

Baseball hasn’t been afraid to try new things in recent years – the addition of the pitch clock, the reduction of times a pitcher may throw to first base and the three-batter minimum rule for relief pitchers. Those things have accomplished at least some of things baseball wanted them to.

It’s now time for baseball to take a stance on its broadcasting mess.

MLB needs to get control of these seemingly endless broadcast packages, local streaming services and regional sports channels vying for rights to its games. There are too many cooks in the kitchen. If baseball wants to keep long time fans and build its fan base, games – yes, even local games – must be available on TV, tablets or any other device the fan wants to watch a game on.

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