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MLB, Fox and TBS reach eight year broadcast rights extension -- some blackout restrictions lifted

old TV

The key thing that you should care about most first: starting in 2014, Saturday out-of-market games will no longer be blacked out from MLB.tv and Extra Innings customers, even when Fox has a national game. It’s not as significant as, say, MLB lifting the territory-driven MLB.tv blackouts currently enforced for vast swaths of the country despite the fact that they are unable to watch the games on TV, but this is a step in the right direction.

As for the stuff that the league, the owners and the networks care most about: the league just announced an eight year extension of the TV rights deals for Fox and TBS. For the most part it will remain the same -- Saturday games on Fox, Sundays on TBS, the World Series and All-Star Game on Fox, the rest of the playoffs split between them -- with a lot of interactive and live streaming as part of the deal.

The money: Selig says that the ESPN, Fox and Turner deals are collectively worth $12.4 billion between 2014 and 2021.

There will be big money rolling in to every major league team now as a result of this deal. Adjust your surprise at teams’ spending habits accordingly.