CHICAGO — If you were unable to watch the Washington Nationals on Opening Day, you’re not alone. On Thursday, some Verizon Fios TV subscribers found themselves shut out of the team’s new broadcast channel. Several spoke with The Athletic and said they were told by Verizon customer service representatives that watching the game would require a more expensive package than they needed previously. Some were told, incorrectly, that the new channel was not available on any package.
That confusion lingered into the evening, when it remained unclear whether fans hoping to watch Nationals broadcasts this season would need to pay more.
Major League Baseball, which is newly overseeing the Nats’ television efforts, declined comment. As did the Nationals. Although a Verizon spokesperson confirmed that the company is carrying the team’s new station, dubbed Nationals.TV, none of the parties addressed questions from The Athletic about whether the cable provider is offering Nats broadcasts in a different tier of service than it had in the past when the games aired on Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. Nor did they explain whether technical issues and customer-service miscommunication were the root of the trouble.
The Nationals posted on their communications account that, if fans have issues, they should call their provider, “as you may need to adjust your subscription.”
“How could MLB screw this up so badly?” Nationals season-ticket holder Terri Bottash said.
Fans who spent the game trying to reach customer service missed the start of a new Nationals era, one that featured a 10-4 victory over the Chicago Cubs. They also missed rookie manager Blake Butera’s comments about the team’s — ahem — interesting postgame celebration of his first victory at the helm.
“They grabbed me and next thing you know, there was a lot of liquids all over me in the shower,” Butera said. “All kinds of stuff. Shaving cream, beer, you name it.”
The Nats changed broadcasters this year, leaving their longtime home on MASN for MLB’s internal broadcast arm, which is handling the production and distribution for 14 teams this season, nearly half the league. But fans of some of those teams didn’t find out where to watch games until Thursday morning, just a few hours before first pitch.
Why? Money.
MLB was in negotiations until the last minute with various TV distributors to carry the games. Those talks went down to the wire as the league and the TV providers tried to maximize their income. But even once the channel announcement was made, some fans who were able to watch Nats games last season were told by customer-service agents that the games now required a more expensive package.
“Really can’t believe that they would require the premium package to see games, when MASN was included on even the most basic packages,” said Karen Duteil, who said she subscribes to a mid-level Verizon package.
Brady House’s home run was one of three by the Nats on Opening Day. But many fans didn’t get to see it happen. (Griffin Quinn / Getty Images)
Some fans said they were given a different message altogether by customer service representatives: That, while they didn’t need to upgrade their service, they might need to give the Fios back-end system time to recalibrate. The result was ultimately the same. When fans scrambled to their televisions to watch Thursday’s win, many realized their favorite players weren’t on. Some rebooted their systems. Many called Verizon.
Tier changes, where TV distributors charge more to customers who want to watch certain channels, are relatively common when cable and satellite companies re-negotiate their deals with sports networks. Distributors — the cable and satellite companies — increasingly do not want to carry regional sports networks on their most basic level of service because they’re expensive.
They want to keep costs low for their basic subscribers.
But it’s a difficult adjustment for viewers when they learn of the change at first pitch. Even by Thursday evening, in perhaps another sign of the last-minute agreement, Verizon’s website still had not listed Nationals.TV as one of its offerings, much less listed which tiers it would be available on.
Baseball fans are already generally on edge about the difficulty of watching games: they’re being asked to sign up not just for a local channel, but also for costly streaming services to watch national telecasts, such as Netflix, which carried Wednesday’s Opening Day matchup between the New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants.
For decades, many fans have lamented the territorial restrictions known as “blackouts.”
Bottash, the season-plan holder, said that she was subscribed to a Verizon package that carried the Nats on MASN last year. When she tried to watch the game Thursday, the channel listed online — 579 — was unavailable. She said she spent over an hour on the phone with three Verizon customer service reps, and was told three times that there were no packages that offered channel 579.
Another fan said a Verizon agent told her that if her Fios package previously included MASN/MASN2, they should automatically have access to Nationals.TV on channel 579 without needing a new subscription. The fan was then told they should check back in 24 hours if they have not gained access.
“It feels like if MLB didn’t wait until the wire to finalize things, today would have gone much smoother for a lot of folks,” Nationals fan Tony Dillon said.
Then there was Peggy Cleer, a Nationals fan who was told that, to tune in, she had to upgrade to Verizon’s most expensive plan, which is $40 more per month than what she had been paying to watch games in the past. She said Verizon relented a bit, giving her the new plan for “basically nothing,” but not without having to purchase updated HD boxes and a router, which will cost her a one-time fee of $180.
A handful of fans who spoke to The Athletic said they just gave up, signed up for a free trial of the Nationals.TV streaming service, and will hope that their issues with Verizon are resolved in the near future.
It was unclear just what percentage of Verizon subscribers were affected.
Meanwhile, some Nationals fans online cited problems with Comcast as well, but the issue appeared less widespread.
MLB has gotten into the business of local broadcasts out of necessity. Local media telecasts produced huge rights fees for teams and great business for broadcasters for a long time, but as cord-cutting has increased, and traditional cable and satellite subscriptions have dwindled, regional sports networks have struggled.
In addition to the Nationals, MLB is producing broadcasts for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, Minnesota Twins, San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays.