Game 1 of the Wild Card round is in the books, and in Chicago, we have some serious problems. The Cubs’ pitching offense did nothing against the Padres, narrowly avoiding a no-hitter in the first of a three-game series. Admittedly, Michael King dominated, scoring a goal that looked out of the zone only to turn the shot in the corner of the plate unassailable. He completely disrupted the Cubs’ offense, which he defined by taking walks, forcing pitchers to a large part of the zone and then doing damage. If Nick Pivetta can execute a similar plan for the Cubs tonight, the Postseason will end without him tonight.
It’s also unclear how many people in Chicago were actually able to watch the game (whether you consider it a blessing or a curse is a question). The Wild Card round was hosted on NBC, which scheduled both Chicago games on its flagship platform and carried by a smaller channel, the NBC Sports Network. If you subscribe to Comcast/Xfinity, YouTube TV or Fubo, you’ve got the game through those services. If you subscribe to the peacock (more on that in the second), you would have a game. If you got cable through either Astound (formerly RCN) or DirecTV, you were out of luck because they don’t carry NBCSN. This was also true if you used a TV streaming option other than YouTube or Fubo. As reported in the Sunday Times:
To watch Games 1 and 2 of Cubs-Padres and White Sox-Stars, fans must watch on Peacock, which costs $12.99 per month, or NBCSN, which is available on Comcast’s Xfinity system and streamers Fubo and YouTube TV. Although Xfinity and YouTube TV are the two largest pay TV providers in the country, NBCSN falls short of services such as DirecTV and Astound/RCN.
A couple of notes here: I’m one of the people affected by this as a slingshot user and despite multiple game add-ons I had no way to access NBCSN through that platform. Additionally, not to joke with the Sun-Times, but to add the cost of the Peacock for yesterday’s game was $19.99 a month and there was no free trial option through NBC. I did some digging and found that I could add a 7-day peacock trial through Amazon Prime, and if I didn’t run for seven days, it would be an additional $19.99 a month. Even when I heard on social media that if you have some cable bundles, it’s a $5 add-on, for others it’s $9.
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Did you get it?
Today’s error drains streaming, cable and pay TV options. I confess, I take the word of men at the price which is now charged to the peacock, and does not try to spend even more hours in shooting and acting his figures. And Pavo that alone. This time MLB is dealing with a few of the multiple streamers who all have their own deals with different providers, etc.
Major League Baseball’s deliberate division of a few games here and a few games there is designed to extract the maximum amount of money from the most engaged fans at a time when most Americans feel financially stretched. Want to watch the Home Run Derby? They better have Netflix. Do you want to watch teams from the entire country (except your local team)? A better sign for MLB.TV. Want to watch your local team? Better pay for streaming too, and/or pray for a cable or pay TV option with them. You can shell out $19.99 a month to subscribe to the Marquee Sports Network, right? Want to watch your local team in the playoffs? That’s another $19.99 a month, either through NBC or through some other silly Subscription as a Service (SAAS) program designed so that you only pay one EVER. You’re always trying a few dollars here, a few dollars there, and from the company’s perspective, I hope you don’t forget that you signed up for that free trial, so you’re milking it for $19.99 until you see it.
Oh, and it doesn’t stop there. They don’t just hope you forget that you pay them every month, they raise those rates as little notice as possible legally, until you see that you spend $64 a year, because somehow it takes $122 less than two years. Streaming is real, as reported this month by Nerdist:
Last year we proposed a record number of price hikes we’d like to see across streaming platforms. It started to feel like every day, flooding platforms would raise their prices and increase costs for their subscribers. And this turns out to be… basically true. In 2025, we saw a total of six price hikes — an increase of about one a month. While in a vacuum, the price increases can feel immaterial, in the total cost, the constant cost hikes are PRESENT. So this year we’re good again. Join us as we take a look at the full price hike and cost increases of 2026. Will we be above or below the 2025 total? We’re already tied for 6 price hikes in 2026 and 2025… So it’s under the table… And it’s likely over.
My apologies for screenshotting the table of contents to summarize this article, there are so many improvements, with such unique nuance, the table of contents is better to get a sense of the scope of the changes. You read the whole thing to get an idea of the actual increase and then look at your bill to figure out what you’re actually paying for TV and streaming).
Spoiler alert: they’re all really hoping you’ll never notice or notice. That $7 becomes $9 becomes $14.99 just doesn’t add up in the slaughter of other costs that increase more in the face every day. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that a one-off event like the MLB Wild Card round is cornered by streaming services that are losing platform wars designed to artificially increase market share. Here is a list of the top streaming services in the United States by subscribers according to FlixPatrol:
There are any number of fans who are tired of this talk. I don’t blame them, I’m complaining about a new media thing that probably doesn’t change once. Someone always loses. Go over it and either sign up for a free trial, remember to cancel, pay $5 (or $9, or $12.99 or $19.99) and watch the game or miss it.
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However, the response to the labyrinthine system and the increasingly opacity will be to encourage baseball fans to pay more for sports. In the meantime, my corporate fingers crossed behind the CEO’s back, secretly hoping to add to his service by forgetting about you. It is an example of art why he despises great things. Don’t bother making these heads for me, Gallup;
Fifteen percent of Americans say they have “a lot” or “a great deal” of confidence in big business, far below the 70% who say they have confidence in small business, as of June 2025. A separate August 2025 poll found that 37% of Americans have a positive view of big business, while 95% have confidence in small business. Perceptions of small things have been almost constant in recent years, while beliefs about big things have been increasing.
Maybe the billionaires who own the baseball teams and the people who run the MLB offices to make these decisions don’t care about any of that. Netflix offered more than Peacock, which offered more than Amazon, and some consultant with the network figured out a way to increase all of that at the expense of our anger and frustration. We’ve dealt with fans with that angst in housing, food, costs and the rise of everything else, so we’ll probably take it out of baseball as well. Even if the powers that be in MLB’s offices believe that fans will always return and are not worried about losing their most loyal fans, they are worried about the difficulties, inadvertently putting on the next generation of fans. How many kiddos out there don’t even have the chance to love baseball because they never had the big moments in the first place?
MLB should be more than a corporation. It should be more than what you would call profit and loss. The kind of loyalty, love and heart that was on display at our party last night in Wrigleyville is an invaluable asset to MLB and team owners. The endless carousel of streaming complications for fans watching the biggest games of the year is a violation of that trust. MLB is playing a dangerous game by leaving its opponents unscathed by these arrangements, especially with the looming battle for the sport’s viability in 2027 and beyond.