Hawaii fans of West Coast baseball teams -- and all the teams that play those teams -- have been fighting mad for all of the 2009 and 2010 seasons because of the infamous “MLB Blackout of Hawaii.” For several seasons through 2008, we enjoyed watching West Coast teams on the cable, satellite and broadcast channels available to us, as well as online at MLB.com. Then, starting in April last year, we suddenly couldn’t do that anymore – even though we had paid MLB and the cable/satellite companies for the privilege.
Major League Baseball began imposing a blackout on those teams’ games in Hawaii because, apparently, the suits at the various broadcast and cable-cast outfits with rights to the teams' games can’t get around to cutting a deal to carry those teams on their outlets here. Consequently, and because of some misguided thinking, MLB never allows Hawaii fans access to those games on MLB.com. Games almost always are also blacked out on regional and national networks like TBS, the Fox Saturday Game of the Week and even on ESPN on occasion.
Fans spent all last year and right up to today, the last Monday of the 2010 regular season, getting nowhere with MLB executives, Comcast, Oceanic Time-Warner, several baseball teams' management (notably the Giants) and maybe other intermediaries who've helped orchestrate the blackout. MLB’s top executives have been the biggest disappointment, either ignoring our emails and letters altogether or writing back with brush-offs on the theme of “it’s not my job.”
What about the fans!? What about MLB executives recognizing a public relations disaster and fixing it? Are we being unreasonable? The newspaper columnists we’ve contacted don’t think so. As Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote last September, this blackout is inexplicable except for the fact that it’s being driven by “knuckleheads.” Ferd Lewis of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser wrote last April that Hawaii fans are suffering from too much love. Every West Coast team considers the islands to be in its “home television territory.” That might make some sense on the mainland, but it’s ludicrous when the closest MLB game is more than 2,000 miles from our homes. Click here to read Scott’s column and here for Ferd’s.
We’re finally putting this issue online here at Comma`aina News. Two West Coast teams are battling to the wire in the National League West, so this seems like a good time. Will writing about it here on an obscure website do any good? Probably not, but MLB can’t hurt us any more than it already has.
Email Addresses: If you want to register your opinion with MLB's headquarters staff, you can start with Chief Operating Officer Bob DuPuy, whose email address is bob.dupuy@mlb.com (we've given up writing the Commissioner). Here are others you can copy on your email: chris.tully@mlb.com - john.mchalejr@mlb.com - allan.selig@mlb.com - rob.manfred@mlb.com
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