O/T Questions for someone in the US or understands the TV market

[CAMiller]

I'm not an expert but if you follow a team out of your local market, to see them on TV you either have to wait upon them being on one of the national broadcast channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) to see a game (a bit like waiting for the Millers to be on MOTD) or you can subscribe to a Cable/Satellite package that covers all games in all markets. Every major league sport has it's own offering, last time I looked the MLB package was $199 for about 2,000 games.

In your local market, all major league teams (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS....etc.) are usually covered by one or maybe two channels. I'm not sure how far a market reach is, in the SF Bay area, when I lived there it included all sport/teams from SF, Oakland and San Jose. Due to the NFL teams only having 8 home games per season, some markets won't show the game unless it is sold out or 90% sold out etc.(pre COVID obviously),

[MillersTime]

I'm not an expert but if you follow a team out of your local market, to see them on TV you either have to wait upon them being on one of the national broadcast channels (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) to see a game (a bit like waiting for the Millers to be on MOTD) or you can subscribe to a Cable/Satellite package that covers all games in all markets. Every major league sport has it's own offering, last time I looked the MLB package was $199 for about 2,000 games.

In your local market, all major league teams (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS....etc.) are usually covered by one or maybe two channels. I'm not sure how far a market reach is, in the SF Bay area, when I lived there it included all sport/teams from SF, Oakland and San Jose. Due to the NFL teams only having 8 home games per season, some markets won't show the game unless it is sold out or 90% sold out etc.(pre COVID obviously),

Thanks for getting back to me with such a thorough answer!

I follow the Knicks and see from their forums and just general NBA chat around the league that if there are national TV games it's called a 'blackout' so local stations can't cover the games (apart from Christmas day typically the Knicks don't get picked often anyway because of them being woeful for years, although that is changing). This is often an annoyance for fans who then have to pay for the cable on top whereas because I'm living abroad I get one sub for everything.

I watch the NBA on league pass, basically the same as the MLB package I'm guessing, all teams, all games live and on demand, playoffs etc etc. Am I right in thinking that if you live in the US many of those channels where I can watch via the internet on league pass are actually 'proper' channels on a TV? So if you subscribe to BaySports in California you get an actual channel to watch like a BBC one say. Can those channels be bought across the US or must you live in that area to get that channel?

A bit long winded but hopefully you get what I mean, apologies for the waffle haha