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I ordered ESPN Game plan in hopes of seeing my UTexas Longhorns play while I"m living here in KY. Only thing is, I just realized that they will have some blackouts even when you pay the $130 for the package.
Has anyone ordered the ESPN Game Plan in the past, and can you give me an idea of how often these blackouts actually occur? I'll be SO upset if I spend nonrefundable $130 and most of the games end up being blacked out. I have DirectTV, but I think the situation is the same no matter who you order ESPN game plan from.
I know that supposedly networks choose to black out games when the don;t "sell out", but I ordered the direct TV Sports Pak to watch the Houston Astros play...thought I'd be able to see the games since I'd now get Fox Sports Houston, and EVERY GAME in the last month has been blacked out. And it's not just the Astros...I've tried watching other Fox Sports Local affiliates for other teams that I know sell out like the Yankees and the Cubs, and every single baseball game all month has been blacked out! SO frustrating!
If it's the same as Sunday Ticket, and I can't see why it wouldn't be, blackouts should only occur when a local station has the rights to the game. So if you get all of the affiliates for your market, you should be fine. For instance, if UT-Oklahoma is on ABC, it will be blacked out on Game Plan but you can still watch it on ABC.
Now, where you could get screwed on this is if you can't receive your local ABC affiliate. This was a problem for a relative of mine- He subscribed to Sunday Ticket, but DirecTV didn't carry his local affiliates. When the game was on his local affiliate, it was blacked out on Sunday Ticket and he had to hook up the antenna and could only see his team through static.
As for the TV Sports Pak question, you can't watch the baseball games because those networks don't have the rights to broadcast the games outside of their home area. You can watch Astros games on Fox Sports Houston ONLY if you live in the Houston market. If you live outside of the Houston market, you need to subscribe to MLB Extra Innings to watch the games.
It doesn't actually have anything to do with sellouts. The sellout rule is only for the NFL, and only for local markets. So if, let's say, the Texans don't sell out a home game, that game won't be available in the Houston market, but it would be available everywhere else. I don't think this has actually happened in many years though. If the local NFL team can't sell out its home games, the local TV station carrying the game will just buy up the remaining tickets.
I think pcity is correct. When I was in OK I tried to get the Fox sports packs on Directv. But I could only get the Astros, Rangers and St Louis games because those were "in my region". If I wanted to watch the Twins, I would have had to get the Extra Innings package. I think its the same for Hockey as well.
the NFL has the blackout rule tied to sellouts and that is local only - if your local market team does not sell out their home game you will not be able to see them on either the local affiliate or sunday ticket
when you buy the regional sports packages you will only see the major professional sports for your home market (like fox sports whatever region) - the others will be blacked out on the regional stations
college games that are shown either on a network or are part of the game plan type packs will also be blacked out on the regionals
i have been able to see some smaller college football & basketball on the regionals that were out of market
as far as ESPN game plan - as long as the game is not being shown on a local station or a cable station that is available to you then the game will be available ........ so if you can flip on ABC, ESPN, etc and see TX it will be blacked out on the game plan
same with the other sports packages (for example, center ice blacks out games that are found on versus)
Ok thank you all for your responses! So basically if I order the ESPN game plan, I should be able to see the TX game on either my local station if it's showing there, OR the ESPN Game plan- so not both, but also not neither...right?
Now what about the UT game this weekend that is being only aired on PPV via Fox Sports? ESPN game plan shows on their schedule that they are showing it. Can I count on this? Or might it possibly be blacked out?
Has anyone actually ordered the ESPN Game Plan in the past? Are you happy with the games they show? DirecTV has the schedule for the first 3 weeks and other than the Texas/ULM game on Saturday, I'm not all that impressed with the games they plan on showing.
slightly off topic, but I ordered the MLB season ticket and plenty of games were still subject to blackout. The strangest one, was every Orioles game was blacked out. So that sucked when my Sox played them. I was a little annoyed too, I figure these packages would give you every game.
In North Carolina, Time Warner persistently refuses to carry the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), which means all Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles games - home and away - are blacked out because MLB includes the state in those teams' broadcast territory. North Carolina's Time Warner customers are now considering a class action lawsuit[citation needed] because they have access to 15% fewer games despite paying the same fee for the package as all other parts of the country.
if you currently have MASN then you should be able to watch orioles & nats games
as a white sox fan if the game is on WGN, you may still get blacked out on extra innings
One thing to note with gameplan (and MLB extra innings) is that these are not comprehensive plans - just because you buy it doesn't mean they will show 100% of your teams games, you'll just have access to their schedule of games that are not otherwise precluded in your area
although not an issue with DTV, some cable companies have issues with both baseball & hockey showing the full compliment of games due to a lack of available channels - i know a lot of sharks fans have complained about getting cut off the schedule
I ordered ESPN Game plan in hopes of seeing my UTexas Longhorns play while I"m living here in KY. Only thing is, I just realized that they will have some blackouts even when you pay the $130 for the package.
Has anyone ordered the ESPN Game Plan in the past, and can you give me an idea of how often these blackouts actually occur? I'll be SO upset if I spend nonrefundable $130 and most of the games end up being blacked out. I have DirectTV, but I think the situation is the same no matter who you order ESPN game plan from.
I know that supposedly networks choose to black out games when the don;t "sell out", but I ordered the direct TV Sports Pak to watch the Houston Astros play...thought I'd be able to see the games since I'd now get Fox Sports Houston, and EVERY GAME in the last month has been blacked out. And it's not just the Astros...I've tried watching other Fox Sports Local affiliates for other teams that I know sell out like the Yankees and the Cubs, and every single baseball game all month has been blacked out! SO frustrating!
Yes Unfortunely even if you pay for a sports package if the home team does not sell out it will be blacked out. I experienced that with the NBA League Pass and some Clippers games don't sell out and it's a blank screen.
slightly off topic, but I ordered the MLB season ticket and plenty of games were still subject to blackout. The strangest one, was every Orioles game was blacked out. So that sucked when my Sox played them. I was a little annoyed too, I figure these packages would give you every game.
I think they try to discuss that as little as possible because they want people to purchase the package-lol
No way are they going to highlight the SH*T side of a Sports Package, just the upside. You will find out about blackouts like this"OH AND BY THE WAY<
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