Here’s why you still can’t stream Red Sox games online in New England
As the Red Sox take the field for the first time this season Monday, countless numbers of baseball fans in offices across New England are asking the same question: How can I stream Opening Day — or any Sox game, for that matter — online?
The answer is you can’t. At least not quite yet.
Sports Business Journal’s Eric Fisher reported Monday that “technical issues” have delayed the MLB’s planned rollout this year for the Red Sox and four other teams until at least mid-April.
That means that anyone living in NESN’s broadcast area (which covers all of New England, with the exception of Connecticut’s Fairfield County) have no online streaming options for the Red Sox’s opening game Monday against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Red Sox fans outside NESN’s broadcast territory can watch their team’s games online on MLB.TV, a paid subscribers-only streaming platform. Meanwhile, due to MLB blackout rules, baseball fans in New England will have to watch Sox games the old fashioned way — on TV.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said in February that the league had reached a deal with NESN to provide in-market streaming for the Red Sox. Manfred also said at the time they were closing in on a deal with Root Sports — which owns broadcasting rights for the Astros, Mariners, Pirates and Rockies — for in-market streaming. According to the sports media website Awful Announcing, those deals would leave just three MLB teams (the Dodgers, Nationals, and Orioles) without in-market streaming.
But as the Journal reported Monday, technical issues have delayed MLB Advanced Media’s development of a new application for NESN to support the local streams.
“It’s not as simple as turning a switch, and when they go live, it has to work,” Bob Bowman, the league’s president of business and media told the Journal. “But they will be starting very soon.”
Update: Multiple readers have pointed out that NESN can be live-streamed by fans within the network’s broadcast territory on PlayStation VUE, a internet-based streaming service available on the gaming console and other devices (including desktops and digital media players like Apple TV).
NESN launched on PlayStation VUE last October to coincide with the beginning of the Boston Bruins’ season.
