Red Sox Baseball (watching it on TV, living in New England)

[skijay]

Last night when I got home I wanted to check the game so I turned on TBS and received the message shown. I am sending this to my satellite provider for an explanation. I have never been banned from receiving a game before. Did anybody in New England watch the Red Sox on TBS last night? Do those of you who have Dish / DirectTV or cable receive this type of message while watching sports? The only thing that changed recently is that I now have cable for my Internet and NOT for TV. I am wondering if some how this gets reported to satellite providers and you get these black outs as I am technically a "cabled" household.

 

[thetrailboss]

I dunno. We live in Boston and a lot of games are broadcast on stations so we can get them on the antenna. But sometimes they're on the Red Sox owned NESN station...

 

[hammer]

I saw a similar message on Dish Network last night.

 

[ChileMass]

On Charter cable today the screen on the WTBS channel was simply black/blank, and the game was being telecsat for free on Channel 38 (WSBK). Wonder why they'd bother to black it out when the game was sold out and it was available on over-the-air TV anyhow.......Go figure.....

 

[BeanoNYC]

If it's showing for free on another channel the cable company is contractually obligated to black out the cable channels it is on. Advertisers won't pay top dollar to, lets say, NBC if the ratings will be watered down because the same game is playing on another channel at the same time. Next time, check your local listings when that happens.

Go Yanks!

 

[MichaelJ]

Most Red Sox games are broadcast on NESN, except the Friday night ones which are on WSBK (UPN 38), the occasional weekend day game on FOX (25), and the occasional Sunday night game on ESPN.

NESN is a part of basic service on most, if not all, cable providers in this area. That was the deal that really opened things up for them to move most of the games onto NESN.

Even if it's listed on another station than those, odds are it will be blacked out on the other station.

 

[skijay]

I have the old large 7.5' c/ku band dish system. NESN and WSBK-38 are not available anymore.