MLB.TV Is a Near Perfect Streaming Service With Increasing In-Market Options

CNET

25-05-2025

Two years before the first video appeared on YouTube and more than three years before Netflix added a streaming option to its DVD rental service, baseball fans have been able to stream baseball games live on MLB.TV. It's an OG video streamer. And that's live video streaming -- Netflix's first livestream didn't happen until 2023.
Since its debut in 2003, MLB.TV has become an indispensable part of the baseball season for millions of fans. For anyone who lives outside their favorite team's TV market, it has provided a reliable way to watch the vast majority of their team's games during the six-month, 162-game regular season. Plus, it shows nearly every other out-of-market game each night.
Blackout restrictions have been the biggest drawback to the service; not only are your local team's games blacked out on MLB.TV, but you also miss out any time your team is included in a national broadcast. In 2025, local blackouts are less of an issue with a third of the league's teams offering in-market streaming through MLB.TV and all but one of the remaining teams offering a third-party streaming option.
Read more: How to Watch, Stream Baseball This Season Without Cable
Other than the expanded number of in-market options, MLB.TV for 2025 is largely the same as previous seasons. The biggest change is a bump in resolution for many teams' streams. MLB states that the majority of games will stream at 1080p instead of the standard 720p resolution. And at this higher resolution, I've seen no drops or lag in any livestreams. It's just as consistent as in the past.
Now in its third decade, MLB.TV has expanded and been refined to the point that it's become a nearly perfect product. The service is well designed, easy to navigate and, most importantly, provides a dependable livestream night in and night out. I've been a longtime subscriber and have only a few nitpicks with the service. Keep reading to find out more about the new in-market options, why blackout restrictions are worse for some fans than others, and my specific problem as a Reds fan with the TV video feed being out of sync with the radio broadcast.
MLB.TV $140 at MLB.TV Like Smooth streaming at up to 1080p
Smooth streaming at up to 1080p Expanded in-market streaming options
Expanded in-market streaming options Easy access to in-game stats
Easy access to in-game stats Choose your own audio feed
Choose your own audio feed Wide device support Don't like National broadcasts are blacked out
National broadcasts are blacked out TV and radio feeds not always in sync
Increased in-market options
An MLB.TV subscription costs $150 for the season or $30 a month for the ability to stream nearly every out-of-market game each day of the season. Now that the season is underway, the league has cut its prices, lowering the full season rate to $140. You can also subscribe to a single team's games for $120 for the year, which is $10 less than it was at the start of the season.
Until last year, MLB.TV lacked in-market options and was only useful for fans who lived outside of their favorite team's home market. With the regional sport network (RSN) model collapsing, MLB teams are moving away from exclusive local TV deals and offering in-market streaming options for local fans.
Last year, fans of three National League West teams -- the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres -- could stream their team's games from their home TV market with an MLB.TV subscription. For this season, that number has increased to 10 teams -- that's a third of the league. The 10 MLB clubs with an in-market streaming option are:
Arizona Diamondbacks
Colorado Rockies
San Diego Padres
Cleveland Guardians
Minnesota Twins
Oakland Athletics
San Francisco Giants
Philadelphia Phillies
Los Angeles Dodgers
New York Mets
In-market MLB.TV plans cost between $20 and $30 a month. Eight of the 10 are priced $20 a month, which is $10 less per month than the single-team out-of-market plan. For full coverage, you can combine most in-market plans with the out-of-market plan for $40 a month or $200 for the season.
Nineteen of the other 20 MLB teams offer an in-market streaming service that's separate from MLB; you can read more about that in my overview of how to watch baseball in 2025.
Matt Elliott/CNET
Beware of blackout restrictions
With all but one MLB team (sorry, Astros fans) offering an in-market streaming service either direct from MLB or a broadcast partner, local blackouts are much less of an issue for most fans. But that doesn't mean that MLB.TV subscribers can live without fear of a game being blacked out. Nationally televised games also fall prey to blackout restrictions. And there are a lot of national MLB telecasts. National baseball broadcasts occur on many nights of the week on ESPN, Fox, FS1, MLB Network and TBS as well as Apple TV Plus -- and these games are blacked out on MLB.TV.
For me -- a fan of a small market team like the Cincinnati Reds who have not had much success in recent memory -- it's rarely an issue for the simple fact that the Reds are seldom selected for a national broadcast. I imagine it's more frustrating for fans of the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs and other big-market teams that are on national TV seemingly every week and, thus, regularly blacked out on MLB.TV.
Still, I find it disappointing when I attempt to tune into a Reds game on MLB.TV and I'm greeted with a blackout notice. Even if I subscribe to the service that has the national broadcast, I like being able to listen to the Reds announcers instead of whoever is calling the national game of the week. Before you subscribe, be sure to check your team's national broadcast schedule so you don't find yourself singing the blackout restriction blues before the ivy turns green at Wrigley.
Matt Elliott/CNET
Sync issues between TV and radio broadcasts
With MLB.TV, you can listen to either the home or away team's broadcasters and either the TV or radio call. That's four sets of announcers to choose from for any game, plus a Spanish-language broadcast for some teams. Baseball is one of the few sports, if not the only one, that's enjoyable to listen to on the radio.
When the Reds are on a road trip, I tune into the TV broadcast with John Sadak handling the play-by-play and Jeff Brantley adding color commentary. Win or lose, it's a wonderful way to spend a couple hours on a summer evening. I have no notes.
During a Reds homestand, however, I like to listen to the radio broadcast while I watch the game. As much as I loved watching the Reds Hall of Fame shortstop Barry Larkin play the game and appreciate his efforts in helping lead Cincinnati to its last World Series title in 1990, I can't say I feel the same way about his talents as a broadcaster. Larkin doesn't travel with the team but sits alongside Sadak for home games, pushing Brantley to the radio booth. Brantey's color commentary is done with greater insight, better humor and is interspersed with much more interesting asides and stories. Brantley did not make the Hall of Fame as a player, but if I had a vote, I'd cast it for him as a Hall of Fame broadcaster. The Cowboy can flat call a game.
The problem for Reds fans in the early part of this season is the radio call was about 10 seconds behind the TV broadcast. What I was watching was a full pitch ahead of what the radio broadcast was describing, making the combination of the TV feed with the radio call somewhere between unenjoyable and unlistenable.
Matt Elliott/CNET
I conducted an unscientific survey over the first month and a half of the season and found this sync issue to be specific to Cincinnati. No other games were as out of sync as the Reds' -- none were even, to borrow a phrase, in the same ballpark. Most games for most teams were synced perfectly most nights. Occasionally, the radio feed was a split second off for a given team on a given night, which might bother you if you were hanging on every pitch the entire game but close enough to make it serviceable. And, again, most of the time I found the two feeds perfectly synced for any game I popped into. The next-closest offender to the Reds' 10-second delay was the Kansas City Royals, whose radio call has been consistently 1.5 seconds behind the TV broadcast so far this season.
In the middle of May, however, the Reds' two feeds became synched, and there was great rejoicing. (I, at least, fist pumped when I discovered this.) My initial celebration was soon tempered when I received an alert on my Apple Watch that the Reds scored a run on a double a second before the RBI double was struck. I have since received notifications on my watch and iPhone alerting me to other run-scoring events right before they occur.
It seemed that in order to marry the TV and radio feeds, MLB pushed the TV feed back 10 seconds to sync with the radio feed. And those 10 seconds give MLB enough time to push a notification to me before the notification-worthy event takes place on the live broadcast. I was getting ready to disable two in-game notifications -- score change and lead change -- in the MLB app to prevent spoilers, but the past few games, I've stopped getting early alerts, so maybe it has worked itself out.
Also included: MLB Network, minor leagues games and more
The inclusion of minor league games with an MLB.TV subscription returns this season after being added last year. Minor league games aren't shown on the MLB app but the separate MiLB app. You'll need to link the app to your MLB.TV account to begin watching, but it's not too arduous a process.
The ability to stream the MLB Network TV channel was added in the middle of last season and is available now for the full season. MLB.TV subscribers also get access to a ton of other video content, including classic games, baseball documentaries and old This Week in Baseball episodes. A daily show called Big Inning offers live look-ins across all the games in action as well as highlights as they happen. It feels similar to the NFL's RedZone channel that jumps around the league's game on Sunday afternoons.
Matt Elliott/CNET
In addition, MLB.TV includes pre- and post-game shows for every team but the Yankees. Fans of the other 29 clubs are able to watch the local pre-game show before the broadcast and the post-game show afterwards. These you'll need to watch live; they aren't included in the archived game streams.
Wide device support
No matter how big a fan I am or how much I enjoy streaming games on MLB.TV, I have neither the time nor the inclination to watch nine innings of baseball every night of the season. My favorite part about MLB.TV is its wide device support that lets me catch parts of a game while I go about my day and evening.
I watch a few innings on the iPad in the kitchen while making dinner and the last couple of innings after dinner on my laptop or TV. And when I can't watch, I listen to the Reds' radio call on my phone when I take the dog out for her evening stroll or during weekend yard work that I try to time around Sunday day games. And when I start a game late, I like the options to join live, start from the beginning, or catch up to the live feed after seeing a few highlights.
MLB.TV is part of the free MLB app, which is available on a slew of devices, from phones and tablets to computers and game consoles to streaming boxes and smart TVs. Here's the full list:
Mac and Windows PCs
iOS and Android phones and tablets
Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Chromecast and Roku streaming devices
PlayStation and Xbox game consoles
LG and Samsung smart TVs
Xumo streaming box
You can get more details, including system requirements and specifics on supported models, on this MLB.com support page.
Matt Elliott/CNET
I tested MLB.TV on the devices I usually use to watch games: iPhone, iPad, MacBook Pro and Roku TV. My preferred device for watching MLB.TV is still the iPad. All devices give you access to stat overlays while watching a game, but the iPad's implementation is best. Swipe from the left edge and you can see a pitch-by-pitch summary of the game. Swipe from the right edge for the box score. A two-finger tap brings up both info panels along with scores of all the games along the top edge and a game-status panel along the bottom edge. Another two-finger tap hides the panels.
Baseball's pioneering streamer is one of the best
MLB.TV has helped me stay connected to the team I grew up rooting for and remain a diehard Cincinnati Reds fan during the nearly two decades I've lived in the heart of Red Sox Nation. Without the ability to watch my team day in and day out of the long, six-month season, I might have abandoned the Reds (winners of two playoff games and zero playoff series this century) and drifted toward the Red Sox, whose games are more easily accessible in New England (and whose fans have enjoyed more postseason success). Instead, I'm still living and dying (the latter, the majority of the time) by the Reds each summer, and I'm happy for it.
My gripes with the service are minor, and I like that the price hasn't increased in the last three years. The price of $150 for the vast majority of your team's 162 regular-season games -- plus thousands of other games during the season -- isn't a bad deal for serious baseball fans.
You access MLB.TV via the free MLB app, but be sure to check out how the blackout restrictions affect the team you follow before subscribing.
Sarah Tew/CNET
Blackout restrictions for national broadcasts are still something you should consider before subscribing, but local blackouts are close to becoming a thing of the past. MLB.TV isn't just an out-of-market streaming service anymore. More fans who live in the same local market as their favorite team have a way to stream its games this season, directly from MLB itself or a broadcast partner. Only Astros fans who live in the Houston TV market must subscribe to a cable package or live TV streaming service to watch their local team.
MLB offers an in-market streaming subscription for 10 teams this year -- up from three last year -- and I expect that number to continue to grow. It's not hard to look into the future and see a day where MLB offers in-market streaming for all 30 of its clubs, and MLB.TV will be the go-to service no matter where you live or which team you follow. I just hope MLB doesn't hike the price when it achieves league-wide, in-market streaming rights. I view it almost as MLB's patriotic duty to keep the national pastime within the reach of most Americans. MLB.TV is a pioneering sports streaming service and has become one of the best over the past two-plus decades, and all baseball fans should be able to enjoy it.