T-Mobile subscribers can expect another five seasons’ worth of free MLB.tv, now that the wireless carrier has inked a contract extension with Major League Baseball.
The renewal of T-Mobile’s partnership deal will also see it continue its sponsorship of the Home Run Derby during MLB’s All-Star Week and begin supporting one of baseball’s more interesting experiments in the minor leagues—the automated ball-strike (ABS) system that baseball began testing there in 2019.
The carrier will set up a private 5G network in an unspecified minor-league ballpark to transmit ABS data and “ensure ultra-reliable, low latency communications as players and officials review, challenge and analyze calls.”
That phrasing in T-Mobile's release suggests this test will involve the less ambitious form of ABS in use, in which human umpires still call balls and strikes but each team gets three challenges per game—which can only be made by pitchers, catchers, or batters. Through late August last year, this system upheld 55% of human calls challenged in Single-A and Triple-A games.
Baseball has also staged smaller-scale tests of a full “robot ump” version of ABS, where this system’s Hawk-Eye video-sensing technology (which tennis already uses with line calls) directly calls balls and strikes.
But until a ballpark is picked out for the installation of T-Mobile's network gear, Major League Baseball clarified, either scenario could be possible.
T-Mobile’s ABS assistance may eventually further its ambitions to become a 5G applications platform, but in the near term that carrier may get more value out of having its MLB.tv freebie to offer subscribers through 2028. This $150/year video service, a T-Mobile perk since 2017, allows out-of-market live streaming of games but not in-market viewing, courtesy of regional blackouts that MLB enforces to protect older carriage deals with regional sports networks.
The baseball-streaming market, however, has been changing rapidly as live-TV streaming services have dumped “RSNs” because of their high costs or, in Fubo’s case, tacked on a new fee to cover those expenses. With multiple RSNs now in bankruptcy or having a corporate parent that wants to exit the business, MLB seems increasingly interested in having MLB.tv become an all-purpose game streaming platform—one that could finally welcome fans looking to watch their home team while at home.