Imagine the biggest regular Orioles season game in at least seven years, as the Birds have a chance to clinch a playoff spot for the first time in seven years and put a hammerlock on the first division crown in nine years.
Then, imagine that the Orioles are hosting the retirement ceremony for Adam Jones, one of the most popular players in recent franchise history, all coming before a sellout Camden Yards crowd.
That, of course, is the scenario for Friday’s meeting with Tampa Bay, a seemingly made-for-television moment for long suffering Baltimore baseball fans.
Yet, the contest and all the pageantry, pomp and circumstance will be lost to most usual Orioles viewers, as the game will air exclusively on Apple TV Plus, a subscription and streaming service.
That means unless you have the Apple TV Plus app on your phone, tablet or laptop or on a smart TV which carries the app, you’ll have to rely on the radio, rather than the usual MASN, a fact that is bound to stir the ire of local fans accustomed to watching the Birds in the usual place.
The move from familiar television broadcasts to subscription-based viewing also shows how quickly sports audiences have adapted to watching games on personal devices. A phone or tablet can make it possible to follow a game almost anywhere, but that convenience often means relying on different internet connections throughout the day.
Privacy becomes worth considering when moving between home networks, public Wi-Fi, and mobile data, particularly when signing into accounts or handling other personal information. An iPhone VPN app may be useful in those situations by routing the device’s internet traffic through a private connection, giving users more control over how they connect while watching or browsing.
As digital access becomes a larger part of following live sports, the experience increasingly depends not only on where a game is being shown but also on having a reliable and appropriately protected way to connect to it.
Friday’s game joins earlier contests which were carried exclusively on Apple TV Plus and Comcast-owned Peacock. Those games, against Minnesota, Atlanta, Kansas City and the Chicago White Sox, were part of national deals struck by Major League Baseball.
That the Orioles are an appealing product to a national audience, what with their meteoric rise to the top of the American League standings this year, is not surprising. Add that to the compelling nature of the Rays’ series – a de facto showdown for the division title – and you have the makings of great television that will inevitably be delivered to a dramatically smaller audience.
The MLB deals with Apple and Comcast, now in their second year, have touched off complaints all over the baseball landscape from fans who are accustomed to watching their teams in familiar places and in familiar ways, meaning not via streaming.
For viewers in Canada, the shifting broadcast landscape has created its own layer of confusion. Games that once lived comfortably on cable are now scattered, requiring a bit more planning before first pitch. Traditional listings still offer some guidance, but they no longer tell the full story, leaving fans to double-check schedules across multiple sources to avoid missing key matchups. It’s a far cry from the days when turning on the television at game time was all it took.
Those trying to keep up would be wise to treat their viewing routine with a bit more intention. A quick glance at a reliable live TV guide can save plenty of frustration—Check this out before settling in, and you might actually catch the game where you expect it. As baseball continues to stretch across new viewing habits, the experience of following a team has become less about habit and more about navigation, something long-time fans are still adjusting to whether they like it or not.
Of course, following the action isn’t just about finding the right channel anymore; it also depends on having the technology in place to avoid interruptions once the game begins. As more entertainment and live events become tied to digital delivery, reliability has taken on greater importance in both homes and businesses, prompting increased attention to backup power solutions such as the eaton 9px ups. While most viewers may only notice these systems when something goes wrong, they play a quiet role in keeping modern viewing experiences consistent at a time when even brief disruptions can mean missing a pivotal moment.
There is, of course, a simple solution to this issue. Baseball should require that Apple TV Plus and Peacock make their signals available to the local carrier, as the NFL does when games appear on Amazon Prime, the NFL Network or ESPN. The streamers will still get the large audience they crave and the local carrier — in this case, MASN – can give the home viewers what they’re used to.
Sports Media Analyst
Milton Kent is a veteran of Baltimore and Maryland journalism. Kent began a long association with the Baltimore Sun in 1985, serving as the Evening Sun’s Howard County reporter for 2 ½ years before joining the paper’s features department as an entertainment writer in 1988. In the following year, Kent began covering men’s and women’s college basketball for the Evening Sun, concentrating on the Maryland men’s and women’s teams. He continued covering college basketball when the writing staffs of the Evening and Morning Suns merged in 1991. From there, he covered the Orioles for three seasons before becoming one of the nation’s first fulltime sports media critics for parts of six years. In 2000, he began covering the NBA until 2004, when he launched a high school sports column, which he wrote until he left the Sun in 2008. Kent joined the staff of AOL Fanhouse, an online sports operation in 2009, covering sports media and women’s basketball, until operations ceased in 2011. He then joined the faculty at Morgan State University in the fall of 2011, where he has taught until the present day. In addition to writing for various platforms, including Sports Illustrated.com and TV Guide, Kent has hosted “Sports At Large,” a weekly commentary program airing on WYPR (88.1 FM) since 2002.