Major League Baseball blackout policy

[1] Most blackouts exist for two reasons: to set a given team's local broadcaster's exclusive broadcast territory, which induces cable systems in those areas to carry the regional sports networks that carry the games, as well as MLB's desire to drive stadium attendance.

[3] The state with the most regional blackouts is Iowa, which is blacked out by six teams — the Brewers, the Cardinals, the Cubs, the Royals, the Twins, and the White Sox — even though all are a multi-hour drive away.

For example, Bally Sports Wisconsin is unavailable in Iowa, so Brewers games are not broadcast anywhere in the state, neither on local channels nor on streaming.

Due to the fact that they play in Canada, the Toronto Blue Jays do not have any blackout territory in the United States.

[8] Due to the parent company of the Bally Regional Sports network, Diamond Sports Group, applying for bankruptcy, there have been calls to end the blackout rule so that local fans can no longer rely on only cable providers to watch their teams' games.

However, they must share British Columbia and Alberta with the Seattle Mariners, Saskatchewan and Manitoba with the Minnesota Twins, and the Maritimes with the Boston Red Sox.

Also, Blue Jays games broadcast nationally over-the-air on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television network have occasionally been subject to local blackout on CBET-TV in Windsor, Ontario, to protect the territorial rights of the Detroit Tigers across the Detroit River.

Ostensibly, if teams/channels are not available in certain locations, teams could lose their claims to such areas and coverage would be replaced by the MLB-controlled Extra Innings service.