Skip to content

Ad Disclosure

Phillies

Your Dad Will No Longer Have to Navigate Apple TV for Phillies Games

Kyle Pagan

By Kyle Pagan

Published:

Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

…after 2028 when the contract with MLB ends, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Kendall Baker. Sorry for that, but it looks like Apple is getting out of MLB at least on Friday night games for now, so you can rejoice that you won’t be getting a phone call from your dad five minutes before game time as he’s trying to find the Phillies. There’s also more shake-up of the broadcasting rights coming apparently:

Of course, now your dad will need Netflix if he wants to watch the Home Run Derby, but he probably hates what the Derby has become anyway. This is the guy that dies a little inside when he sees the cockamamie bullshit, his words not mine, Savannah Bananas come on his TV. So I don’t think he’ll miss Bryce Harper’s moonshot get batted down by the Mind Flayer from Stranger Things out in right field when Netflix incorporates their properties into the Derby.

I personally liked Apple TV games. The picture quality was amazing and you could listen to Scott Franzke if you didn’t like the game announcers. But to me it’s not really make or break if Apple stays around baseball. I’d be interested to see them get into the NFL and they dipped their toe into Sunday Ticket negotiations when that was available. Please, for the love of god leave the predictive stats on the bottom right of the screen in the past. I don’t care if there’s a 30% chance Jalen Hurts runs the ball here. Nobody does.

Looking into this more, NBC dipped their toe into baseball in 2022 with MLB Leading Off, but before that hadn’t shown the sport since 2000. Seems like they’re making a strong push into live sports now that they have the NBA for the next decade and already have Sunday Night Football. I’ve got a perfect theme for NBC to use if they secure the rights (h/t Jeff McDevitt since the original tweet wouldn’t embed):

MLB TV would be sold to ESPN. This isn’t MLB Network, but the MLB’s version of Sunday Ticket, which I think people would enjoy. I’ve never used MLB TV, but I know people complain about it all the time due to local blackouts and game restrictions. Maybe ESPN’s new DTC product coming out this week will fix that and spell the death of RSNs.

I’ll miss these calls:

Kyle Pagan
Kyle Pagan

Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com

Advertise With Us