YouTube TV drops YES Network, FOX RSNs a month before Opening Day

Ryan Fagan

YouTube TV drops YES Network, FOX RSNs a month before Opening Day image

Watching Major League Baseball is not getting any easier for the sport’s target audience, baseball fans.

Though long-suffering Dodgers fans in Los Angeles probably don’t want to hear about new worries for other fan bases, Blue Jays fans in Toronto have to deal with new Rogers restrictions and, on Thursday afternoon, more bad news dropped for baseball fans across the country.

Yikes.

MORE: MLB commissioner Rob Manfred sure seems to hate baseball

Opening Day is less than a month away. The first games are on March 26, and baseball fans everywhere will have to figure out other options because Sinclair and YouTube TV can't reach an agreement.

YES Network, of course, carries Yankees games. The Yankees, as you probably know, have a rather large fanbase. And the FOX Regional Sports Networks? Those channels carry the games to 14 other MLB cities.

Fans of the Braves, Cardinals, Twins, Angels, Brewers, Padres, Reds, Diamondbacks, Indians, Rangers, Rays, Tigers, Royals and Marlins who were planning to watch their favorite team on YouTube TV are out of luck. According to Q4 numbers, more than 2 million people subscribe to YouTube TV.

And it’s not like spurned baseball fans can just get a subscription to MLB.TV because, y’know, blackout rules apply in the local viewing area.

There are other options: Local cable providers, varying city by city, offer subscriptions. There are other services like YouTube TV out there (Hulu, for example), but as the company pointed out, they’re not the only ones having issues reaching an agreement with Sinclair.

This isn’t the type of news baseball wants to be dominating headlines a month before real games start, but here we are.

Ryan Fagan

Ryan Fagan Photo

Ryan Fagan, the national MLB writer for The Sporting News, has been a Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2016. He also dabbles in college hoops and other sports. And, yeah, he has way too many junk wax baseball cards.