Many baseball fans hoping to watch Opening Day games on MLB.tv were left disappointed on Thursday as they were met by technical issues. Social media posts showed the outrage and confusion as the league’s streaming service failed and went down around 3 p.m. Eastern, just as several games got ready for the first pitch of the season.
The streaming service, which allows fans to watch out-of-market games online and on the MLB app, costs $29.99 per month or $149.99 per season to watch all teams. There are also some packages that allow fans to watch in-market games through partnerships with local affiliates for an additional cost.
The MLB season started with two games between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs in Japan earlier in March, but most teams began play on March 27. By about 4:30 p.m., after the bulk of the games had their first pitch, MLB.tv appeared to be working again, at least for some users.
MLB has not posted or issued a statement about the issues.
Down Detector Showed Fans Began Reporting Issues & Saying MLB.tv Was Not Working
The website downdetector.com showed complaints about MLB.tv spiked on March 27 on Opening Day. The first reports of issues began to be reported about 3 p.m., and spiked up by 4 p.m., according to the website.
Users reported issues with both the app and website. Users reported receiving a message saying, “Network Error. Please check your network connection and try again.”
One fan wrote, “cant watch my reds, wtf. whats going on.” Another said, “unable to establish connection with MLB services. put it on my headstone.” One report said, “Anyone now being asked to pay to subscribe again, or app saying you’re not subscribed?,” and another replied, “Yes, that’s what is happening to me–SO maddening. Opening day, already the app is failing. This app is THE WORST.”
Fans Also Took to Social Media to Register Their Complaints About MLB.tv: ‘Get Your S Together’
Baseball fans also took to social media to register their complaints about MLB.tv being down on Opening Day.
On X, one MLB.tv user wrote, “MLB TV not working during literally their most important day of the year is so classic MLB. Charging $150/year and then not providing a working product/service is quite the racket!!”
Phillies fan Mike Marbach wrote on X, “I pay $150 a year for @MLBTV for them to black out games over 150 miles way from me and calling in market, put games on other apps that I don’t want, and now, crashing on opening day. Y’all have a year to get your s together. This is ridiculous for the money people pay. #mlbtv.”
Others took issue with MLB not saying anything about the outage, with Mike Rudner posting on X, “Hey @MLBFanSupport and @MLBTV – first of all having technical issues on Opening Day is unacceptable. But how do you not even acknowledge it is happening and then say you’re actively working on it?! Business communications 101 over here.”
BarstoolTate added, “Am I overreacting when I say @MLBTV needs to refund everyone for the entire season if they miss your teams first pitch? Opening Day is the best part of baseball for the next 8 months.”
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