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Major League Baseball In Iowa Takes Center Stage

August 13, 2021

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Hey friends,

Major League Baseball took center stage last night. More than 30-years after the movie was originally released, the New York Yankees & Chicago White Sox recreated the iconic “Field of Dreams” in Dyersville, Iowa.

The venue was amazing. Major League Baseball spent over $5 million constructing the 8,000-seat stadium, and tickets were selling for more than $2,000 just to get in.

Oh yeah, the game was also incredible. Just hours after players walked through a cornfield from the original field where the movie was filmed to the newly constructed stadium, White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson ended the back-and-forth game with an epic 2-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the 9th.

Fireworks erupted, and the crowd went wild; it was literally one of the best baseball games I have seen in years.

The game was also a brutal reminder of just how far Major League Baseball still has to go. For example, local fans were frustrated that the league used their community as a ceremonial prop for their biggest marketing play in years, despite clearly never actually caring about baseball fans in Iowa for most of the past decade.

Here’s what I mean: With six teams subject to blackouts on MLB.TV — Brewers, Cardinals, Cubs, Royals, Twins, and White Sox — Iowa is famously known as a baseball dead zone.

  • Number of MLB teams in Iowa: 0

  • Number of MLB teams subject to blackouts in Iowa: 6

The general idea behind a blackout is that customers shouldn’t be allowed to stream a game online when they live in a place where they could either watch the game on cable TV or, you know, actually attend the game in person. But that ignores common sense and reality, especially when it comes to Iowa.

Here’s a good summary of the situation from a frustrated fan on Reddit:

I live in Des Moines, Iowa. I am 200 miles away from the nearest MLB ballpark, which is Kauffman in Kansas City. I don’t have cable, but would like to still watch games for this upcoming season.

I was looking into MLB.TV and expected there to be blackouts, but not to the extreme of what I found. Six teams (Cubs, Cardinals, Brewers, Twins, Royals, and White Sox) are blacked out in my region. I am a Twins and Cubs fan and Target field is 250 miles away while Wrigley is at least 300.

I want to give MLB money and have their service, but it is absolutely ridiculous that at least 20% of games (potentially up to 40% if they are all playing other teams outside of those six) are blacked out on a given night. I understand to a degree why blackouts are a thing. You want to drive people to the games, to the ballparks, among various other reasons. For someone like me though, I can’t go to every home game for my teams. I hope to make it to one or two Twins games and one or two Cubs games.

It’s hard to support my teams and watch baseball in general when these restrictions are in place. Sure, I can put on a random game of Dodgers/Giants or whoever it might be and be entertained, but I want to watch my teams as well. I shouldn’t be penalized this hard when I live 200+ miles from all six of those teams that are blacked out.

To recap: This fan lives in Iowa, a state that doesn’t have an MLB team. He is more than 200+ miles from the nearest ballpark — a three to four-hour drive — and is literally saying, “I want to give MLB money.” The craziest part? That post is from 2018, and Major League Baseball still hasn’t found a solution.

There is obviously nuance to this. Major League Baseball has to work in tandem with regional broadcast networks and must still emphasize local fans attending games in person. But the idea that individual teams should be able to pick their broadcast territory is beyond ridiculous.

Why should fans in Las Vegas be subject to blackouts in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and Phoenix, all of which are more than 250 miles away? Even worse, fans in Hawaii are blacked out by all five California teams despite being separated by 2,000 miles and the Pacific Ocean. That’s beyond all reasonable logic.

This map shows blackout restrictions throughout the United States. Just look at Iowa, Las Vegas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas.

Again, this is a unique & nuanced problem that doesn't necessarily have a clear solution. These rules have existed for years, but if you want the game of baseball to continue to evolve and grow, finding a solution for fans that are begging to watch (& spend money) seems like an obvious place to start.

With fans in Iowa putting up billboards asking for blackouts to end, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred specifically stated this week that he intends to find a solution to the problem. But we’ve heard that before. The key will be actually implementing changes that make a difference.

I hope each of you has a great weekend, and I’ll talk to everyone on Monday.

My friend & former Green Bay Packers executive Andrew Brandt is hosting an exclusive class next Tuesday (August 17th) at 8 pm ET. The session will cover how to break into the sports industry, what life working in sports business is really like, and detail some of the incredible stories from Andrew’s 18-year career.

If you’re interested, you can sign up here.

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