I’m a new baseball fan and everything I’ve read online is going way over my head
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If you live in the market of a team, the idea is you’re supposed to watch that team on a channel they own or are affiliated with. Which traditionally has been the RSN, like Bally Sports South/Midwest/etc___ (formerly Fox Sports South/Midwest/etc____ ).
The blackout rule exists to prevent people from just going to MLB TV to avoid using the RSN (because they want to cut cable or whatever).
The main controversy is that sometimes the RSN doesn’t even serve the whole area covered by the blackout rule, so a small amount of people end up not having a legal way to watch the nearest team(s). And in some cases there can be like 6 teams blacked out (e.g. in Iowa the teams in Minnesota, Milwaukee, Chicago [2 teams], St Louis, and Kansas City are all blacked out).
If it wasn’t so extreme then it wouldn’t be as controversial.
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