The impending death of Bally Sports

[Edman85]

4 hours ago, chasfh said:

Not for me. My mlb.tv is tied to DirecTV Extra Innings, and that does not start until Opening Day.

You can't just go to the website and pull it up?

[oblong]

5 hours ago, chasfh said:

I get it because it comes free with my DirecTV Extra Innings subscription. Since DEI (get it?) isn't available until Opening Day, then neither is mlb.tv, for me, anyway.

What I meant was, you don’t get a complimentary sub thru being a Cubs season ticket holder?  Do you still have the tickets?  I’ve had one via the Tigers for a long time.  It was part of the purchase 

[chasfh]

11 hours ago, Edman85 said:

You can't just go to the website and pull it up?

I cannot. It sends me to a subscribe page.

[chasfh]

9 hours ago, oblong said:

What I meant was, you don’t get a complimentary sub thru being a Cubs season ticket holder?  Do you still have the tickets?  I’ve had one via the Tigers for a long time.  It was part of the purchase 

I’m not an STH anymore, not since 2021, but no, they never made anything like that available to me. Or if they did, they kept it to themselves and expected me to stumble over it somehow.

[TigerNation]

14 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

So I have to pay another service...Peacock...Apple TV....Fanduel Sports (for Wings and Pistons) and now another streaming service. On top of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and YouTube TV. And MLB TV. The limit and patience has been reached. These billionaires keep figuring out ways to separate people from their money. 

<rant over>

Well at least you dont need Peacock separately if you have YouTube TV.

[Edman85]

3 hours ago, chasfh said:

I cannot. It sends me to a subscribe page.

So even if you didn't have it, the "Free game of the day" during the season wouldn't be free?

[theroundsquare]

this is my experience also.  i recall that it was not this way in the past.  as recently as last year (i think) i just clicked 'watch' and could watch spring games.  no more.

[Edman85]

16 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

So I have to pay another service...Peacock...Apple TV....Fanduel Sports (for Wings and Pistons) and now another streaming service. On top of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and YouTube TV. And MLB TV. The limit and patience has been reached. These billionaires keep figuring out ways to separate people from their money. 

<rant over>

En****tification at its finest.

But on the plus side, these games are available now. When I grew up outside of Michigan in the 90's, I could maybe watch two Tigers games a year. Now I can watch 153.

 

You were already paying for the Tigers games, it was just baked into your cable package.

[chasfh]

6 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

So even if you didn't have it, the "Free game of the day" during the season wouldn't be free?

I thought i tried that but i was still asked to subscribe, but maybe I didn’t pay close enough attention to doing it properly. If i do give that a try i will circle back and report results.

[NorthWoods]

16 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

what it happening on MLB TV is individual team subscriptions for in market games that are separate from the out of market MLB TV package. Most the teams that have gone off Diamond already had their team subscription offers up, but the Tiger one only appeared very recently - maybe today. BUT, before you buy that for $189 for the year, the other half was that they are still trying to get the games on various cable services - TBD. So if you have a Comcast or DirectTV etc, subscription, I think you should hang tight and see if an announcement comes they will be on your system before that March 26 offer deadline to subscribe to MLB directly. 

For me, we get so little value out of Direct TV I'm thinking it's likely I'd go with the MLB offer and drop DirectTV for something a lot cheaper

Similar for me,  I only subscribe to FUBO because it includes FanDuel.   If they don't replace FanDuel with this new Tigers/Wings thing I'll kill FUBO and go somewhere that does package it.

[Shelton]

33 minutes ago, NorthWoods said:

Similar for me,  I only subscribe to FUBO because it includes FanDuel.   If they don't replace FanDuel with this new Tigers/Wings thing I'll kill FUBO and go somewhere that does package it.

I know a lot of people are frustrated with how these various offerings are being split up, but I kind of like it. Fubo to me was an espn, cbs, Fox, nbc/usa, and Fanduel delivery system (put another way, just for sports). But then they dropped nbc/usa and the nfl season ended so I had reduced need for Fox. I realized I can get almost of these on an ad hoc basis and/or it’s already included in the other services I had.

I assume fubo hasn’t brought back nbc/usa. 
 

Anyway, I don’t miss it, and I didn’t need to switch to YouTube/hulu to get the stuff. 

[Shelton]

I like that the new service is offered for subscription via mlb and available in the same app that I have for mlb.tv. It was annoying to go into the mlb app to watch other games but having our local game blacked out and hai g to switch to the other app to get our game. 
 

I presume these games will be integrated into the espn/disney app like the rest of the mlb app offerings. 

[gehringer_2]

6 minutes ago, Shelton said:

I like that the new service is offered for subscription via mlb and available in the same app that I have for mlb.tv. It was annoying to go into the mlb app to watch other games but having our local game blacked out and hai g to switch to the other app to get our game. 
 

I presume these games will be integrated into the espn/disney app like the rest of the mlb app offerings. 

I was able to get to a game last week via DirectTV>Disney+->EspnUnlimited but I'm not sure if that was a one time thing/free game/whatever. Also didn't seem to be any DVR function at ESPN-Unlim which I would miss a lot because I almost always start a recording of game before I'm available to watch it. 

If they make a deal to get a 'linear' service on DTV I'll probably be too lazy to do anything else.

[RedRamage]

1 hour ago, Edman85 said:

You were already paying for the Tigers games, it was just baked into your cable package.

Yeah, but it wasn't $20 extra per month just for one channel.

[Motown Bombers]

16 hours ago, Sports_Freak said:

So where will the Pistons end up? No way will FanDuel stay afloat with only them. It looks like I'll sacrifice the Wings regular season games and just buy 6 months of this new streaming service. April thru September for the Tigers and then switch to where ever the Pistons end up. The Wings will be on national TV for the playoffs, I hope. And if they dont even make the playoffs (again), it won't even matter. Missing a season of bottom feeding hockey won't upset me.

I just said **** it and will pirate the games I want to watch. 

[NorthWoods]

1 hour ago, Shelton said:

I assume fubo hasn’t brought back nbc/usa. 
Anyway, I don’t miss it, and I didn’t need to switch to YouTube/hulu to get the stuff. 

Not yet they haven't.   I just called them and they're promising a resolution that includes the Tigers, Wings and Pistons BEFORE the regular season begins.   

They credited some $$ for NBC previously.  I told them that without the sports at a reasonable rate I was gone.

[Edman85]

2 hours ago, RedRamage said:

Yeah, but it wasn't $20 extra per month just for one channel.

It wasn't,  but you were still paying for stuff you didn't watch as part of the bundles.

[Sports_Freak]

6 hours ago, TigerNation said:

Well at least you dont need Peacock separately if you have YouTube TV.

Lol...I would have to pay for it if I wanted it. I get NBC but not Peacock.

[Sports_Freak]

The annual price for this new service isn't a very good deal for baseball fans who don't care about hockey. The regular Tiger season goes from April thru September. 6 months. At $20 per...it's $120. (Actually, the season starts in March but the 1st payment is April 1st.)

[TigerNation]

1 hour ago, Sports_Freak said:

Lol...I would have to pay for it if I wanted it. I get NBC but not Peacock.

Peacock games are on YTTV.

[Sports_Freak]

2 hours ago, TigerNation said:

Peacock games are on YTTV.

NBA wasn't. When the Pistons were on Peacock, they were also on FanDuel. Peacock is a subscription channel, I searched for it and it's not in the line-up. Do you say it will be broadcasting baseball without a subscription? That would be cool...

[Sports_Freak]

3 hours ago, TigerNation said:

Peacock games are on YTTV.

I found some info on Peacock and sporting events. I hadn't even heard of this. Thanks for the heads up!

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2025/10/peacock-youtube-tv-nfl-excluded/

[RedRamage]

15 hours ago, Edman85 said:

It wasn't,  but you were still paying for stuff you didn't watch as part of the bundles.

To be fair it's been a bit since I was a cable subscriber who added on the extra to get the RSN, but I seem to remember it was more in the range of $10-15 more and I did some other channels that I'd occasionally watch. 

I suppose I need to really look at it more on a per game basis... I figure I watch maybe 10-15 games a month (sometimes more, sometimes less depending on when they are on and what time I have). So let's say 12 games per month at $20 per month... that's only $1.67 per game... less if I watch more games. That's really not terrible. I'm sure I spend more than that per day on various drinks... and it's far less than going to watch a 2-hour movie (not that I really ever do that). 

It still sucks to think of paying another $20 per month for yet another subscription.

[Sports_Freak]

8 hours ago, RedRamage said:

To be fair it's been a bit since I was a cable subscriber who added on the extra to get the RSN, but I seem to remember it was more in the range of $10-15 more and I did some other channels that I'd occasionally watch. 

I suppose I need to really look at it more on a per game basis... I figure I watch maybe 10-15 games a month (sometimes more, sometimes less depending on when they are on and what time I have). So let's say 12 games per month at $20 per month... that's only $1.67 per game... less if I watch more games. That's really not terrible. I'm sure I spend more than that per day on various drinks... and it's far less than going to watch a 2-hour movie (not that I really ever do that). 

It still sucks to think of paying another $20 per month for yet another subscription.

I agree...another billionaire company reaching into our pockets to extract a bit more out of us.

But I look at it like this, it doesnt really matter, in my case. I'm going to cancel FanDuel in mid-April so that $20 will go from them to this new streaming service. And that MLB app works much, much better than that clunky FanDuel app. So it's just a switch of services. There will be a one month overlap so I can catch the end of the Piston season and I'll miss the Wings next fall but hope to catch them on some regular TV. The Pistons are still my concern, no way will FanDuel only carry them.

[Shelton]

1 hour ago, Sports_Freak said:

I agree...another billionaire company reaching into our pockets to extract a bit more out of us.

But I look at it like this, it doesnt really matter, in my case. I'm going to cancel FanDuel in mid-April so that $20 will go from them to this new streaming service. And that MLB app works much, much better than that clunky FanDuel app. So it's just a switch of services. There will be a one month overlap so I can catch the end of the Piston season and I'll miss the Wings next fall but hope to catch them on some regular TV. The Pistons are still my concern, no way will FanDuel only carry them.

I’m not sure why I’m responding to you, but I’m seeing these types of comments a lot and I don’t get it. Anyway, Fanduel Detroit was a great value. It was almost peerless, but it’s dead. 
 

The fact that baseball and the tigers are in position to so quickly provide a replacement that is likely a better product is incredibly impressive. Like you said, during the summer months, it’s a one for one replacement. 
 

What the pistons manage to do will be a different story and we’ll see. But that’s not the tigers, red wings, or MLB’s fault. 
 

Other teams providing baseball only for 100 bucks over six months is nice, sure. But that’s not what our network has. If things were the same they wouldn’t be different. 
 

If you got the tigers before without paying Fanduel directly, you will get them the same way (Comcast, directv, etc). 
 

The current situation should not prompt a single “greedy bastards” comment beyond what could have been said six months ago.