Baseball blackouts: Who's responsible for viewing hell?

We're a month into baseball season. The Chicago Cubs have a winning record. And one of the St. Louis Cardinals' star players is out for the season.

Hope springs yet again.

Brian Conley says he's mindful there are probably more serious issues the Reader's Watchdog could look into, but this one's a big deal — especially when you consider the Cubs are by far the ruling franchise in Iowa.

Like many others, Conley is sick of the fact that he can't watch the Cubs on Mediacom or the MLB.TV or MLB Extra Innings subscription services because it is considered part of the team's regular season in-market blackout. And since he can't have a dish at his West Des Moines townhome, he can't catch games via satellite on Comcast SportsNet Chicago, either.

He says he called MLB.TV and customer service people there blamed the blackout policy on the franchise. He says he called the Cubs and they blamed it on MLB.TV.

"This is a problem," he said. "They are trying to turn this into a Cardinals town."

His question: Whose problem is it really, and why won't they fix it?

The blackout problem, as the fans of other Midwest teams know, is actually far worse. That's because when it comes to broadcasting, Iowa is not only claimed as the home turf of the Cubs, but also by the Minnesota Twins, Cardinals, Kansas City Royals, Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers.

That means whenever the Cubs, Cardinals, Twins, Royals, White Sox and Brewers — the six Major League Baseball clubs in the Midwest — are on a nationally televised weekday broadcast, that game can and most likely will be blacked out in the entire state.

Put in other terms, Iowa is in baseball viewing hell. Only Las Vegas and southern Nevada are subject to as many teams' blackouts.

There was some good news this month that should allay a little anxiety in the Des Moines metro.

KCWI and partner WOI put together a last-minute deal with WGN-Channel 9 to air 33 Cubs games and 17 White Sox games this season. The schedule can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/praluq3.

Tony Hoffman, sales manager at KCWI, said that's all the stations could grab for now, but there's hope for a larger package next year.

Greg Easterly, general manager at WGN in Chicago, which picked up 45 games under a new five-year contract with the Cubs, said he hopes to make all those games and three pre-season games available in Iowa.

(Locally, half of the Cubs games are aired on Comcast SportsNet and 23 air on WLS-Channel 7.)

"Obviously this is the first year for us to find other markets to find those interested in our games," he said. "Response has been great."

But Major League Baseball officials tell me fixing the larger issue of blackout territories and assuring all Iowa fans have access to their favorite Midwest teams is going to take some time.

Baseball's archaic blackout policy, first drawn up in the 1960s, was devised in the days before cable.

The league drew up a map of "home territories" to protect local television affiliates. But many of those affiliates died, or stopped carrying a majority of a team's broadcasts. Most clubs began to show the bulk of their games via paid-cable regional sports networks.

One defense of blackouts, of course, is that they entice fans to go to games.

But even the most die-hard Cubs, Brewers or Cards fans in Iowa aren't going to make the five- or six-hour drives enough in a season for that to make financial sense. The real money these days behind the league's record $9 billion in profits are broadcast rights.

And here's what else debunks that myth: Major League Baseball's blackout rules apply whether a game is home or away — and regardless of whether it is televised in a club's home television territory.

Of course, some fans have better luck catching games on cable or satellite.

Conley and other Cubs fans used to be able to catch games under the Cubs' old broadcast contract with WGN America. But the Cubs' new five-year contract this year only applies to Channel 9 in Chicago, not WGN America, which no longer does sports broadcasting. And he can't get Channel 9 on Mediacom.

Conley says he's been told by MLB.TV he can watch games about 90 minutes after they are over, when they are archived. But that's no fun.

"By then I already know what happened," he said.

Last year, Bob Bowman, president and CEO of MLB Advanced Media, the company that runs the MLB.TV service, told the Associated Press the blackout restrictions would be eased in 2015.

He described a new policy that would allow fans to view their home team's games over the Internet via MLB.TV, but only if the fan also subscribed to whichever cable network is airing the game locally.

Thus far, however, that hasn't happened.

But there are incentives for New York-based MLB to finally start reforming the rules that former baseball commissioner Bud Selig complained about a decade ago.

For one thing, tech-savvy fans are starting to subscribe to VPNs, or Virtual Private Networks, to reroute traffic on digital devices. The services allow them to sidestep local blackouts for inexpensive fees.

Of course, the practice violates MLB.TV's terms and conditions.

Violators risk losing their service and paying a $100 early termination fee. Some lawyers have also argued the VPN workaround could violate provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

But viewers have been using them for a long time to access Netflix, HBO, Hulu and Amazon outside the U.S.

In the next year or so, Major League Baseball's broadcast policies will be on trial.

Fans have brought a class-action lawsuit against MLB and MLB Advanced Media. Earlier this year, a federal appeals court rejected the league's attempt to have the lawsuit thrown out using its federal antitrust exemption.

The lawsuit also names cable and satellite operators such as Comcast and DirecTV, and several regional sports networks.

Lee Rood's Reader's Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Contact her at lrood@dmreg.com, 515-284-8549 on Twitter @leerood or at Facebook.com /readerswatchdog.