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The True Cost of Following Your Favorite MLB Team in the Streaming Era

The rules for watching Major League Baseball have fundamentally changed, and the primary driver is fragmentation. While recent deals—like Netflix grabbing the exclusive rights to the Home Run Derby and the 2026 Opening Day game—may seem like exciting progress for the league, they highlight a core problem for dedicated fans: massive viewing fragmentation. For a fan of any particular team, the choice is no longer simple. It's now a complicated decision between subscribing to traditional cable just to get their Regional Sports Network (RSN) or meticulously managing multiple, complex, month-to-month streaming subscriptions just to avoid missing a single game. This post analyzes the true, calculated month-by-month cost and services required to achieve 100% team coverage in the current fragmented media environment.

The Essential Core (The Team's Local Solution)

The biggest barrier to watching baseball for years was the local blackout. Now, almost every team has provided a solution, setting a universal baseline cost for dedicated fans.

The Universal Challenge: Solved (Mostly)

A landmark achievement in the cord-cutting world is that 29 of the 30 teams now offer a single, dedicated, in-market streaming app for their regional games. This means the local blackout problem has largely been solved across the league, with most local access fees falling into a ~$20 - $25/month range. The benefit is obvious: nearly 150 of your team's 162 games are available on a single platform without needing a huge cable bundle. The lone exception is the Houston Astros, whose RSN still requires a cable/vMVPD login (sorry, Astros fans!).

Example: The Atlanta Braves (FDSN)

To illustrate this new baseline, look my situation as a fan of the Atlanta Braves, who are carried by the FanDuel Sports Network (FDSN). To watch this team locally, fans need the RSN's direct-to-consumer (DTC) app. This service covers approximately 150-155 regional games (home and away) for a cost of ~$20/month. This $20 investment is the essential, unavoidable cost for local fans of the Braves and most other MLB teams.

The Occasional Exclusives (The Cost-Saving Strategy)

This is where the fragmentation—the true cost to the fan—becomes obvious. Fans of all 30 MLB teams must be prepared to purchase temporary, month-to-month national subscriptions to catch the handful of games blacked out on their local RSN. For a smart cord-cutter, the strategy is to subscribe only for the month your team is scheduled to appear on a given platform.

Here is the list of platforms you must be ready to stack to achieve 100% coverage:

Apple TV Plus

  • Content: Exclusive Friday Night Baseball.
  • Cost: ($10/month).
  • Strategy: Subscribe only during the month your team is featured in a Friday night exclusive.

ESPN Unlimited

  • Content: Exclusive weekday national games, which replaced the old Sunday Night Baseball package.
  • Cost: ($30/month).
  • Strategy: This is the most expensive occasional fee. Only subscribe for the specific months your team has an exclusive slot on the ESPN network.

Fox One (for FS1)

  • Content: Occasional national games on FS1 (e.g., Saturday nights).
  • Cost: ($20/month).
  • Strategy: This is a streamlined way to access FS1 games without a full vMVPD subscription. Use this only for the months a nationally exclusive game is scheduled on FS1.

Netflix

  • Content: MLB Opening Day Game (2026+), Home Run Derby.
  • Cost: ($8/month - Standard with ads plan).
  • Strategy: A low-cost subscription needed only for March/April (Opening Day) and July (Home Run Derby).

Over-the-Air (OTA) FOX

  • Content: Weekly national Game of the Week.
  • Cost: Free (via digital antenna).
  • Strategy: This is a zero-cost option for the games carried on your local Fox broadcast affiliate, accessible with your AirTV Anywhere setup.

The Calculated Cost of Coverage

The fragmentation dilemma forces the fan into an expensive and complex equation. For a dedicated fan seeking 100% coverage, the viewing schedule dictates that you must be willing to pay the unavoidable local RSN fee (e.g., ~$20/month for the Braves for 6 months) plus the variable cost of stacking these national services.

While new media deals successfully increase accessibility for the league and its revenue, the result is that they fragment the viewing experience for team-specific fans across the entire MLB landscape. The core problem isn't that you can't watch your team—it's that you have to use five different apps and services to do it.

My Streaming Life relies heavily on tracking the schedule meticulously and activating these national subscriptions only when necessary, minimizing the monthly bleed. The hope is that when all major broadcast rights align in 2029, the league will follow through with a simple, consolidated DTC solution that ends this confusing stacking once and for all.

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