Local blackouts mar baseball TV package

To the editor:

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig’s contract extension is bad news for Las Vegas fans.

The blackout rule in baseball has outlived any purpose. Baseball fans living in Las Vegas know too well the policy of blacking out games for certain areas is ill-conceived and ridiculous. Fans pay a lot to purchase the MLB package to watch their favorite teams. Included in the blackout list are the San Francisco Giants and Oakland A’s, even though they are almost 600 miles away.

Why does MLB — and, in particular, Mr. Selig — continue to allow those cities to claim territorial rights to Las Vegas? Mr. Selig turns a deaf ear to the many complaints over this issue. But there is no justification for it, and it prohibits loyal fans from viewing their teams.

If that were not bad enough, the teams are blacked out even when on the road. For example, if Oakland or San Francisco are playing at the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox or the Philadelphia Phillies, the games are blacked out in Las Vegas. Utterly absurd.

I can’t imagine the frustration Giants fans felt when their team won it all in 2010. If Mr. Selig truly cares about baseball fans, he needs to stop ignoring them and abolish this rule.

Let that be his legacy.

William C. Dwyer

Las Vegas

Rebel TV

To the editor:

The UNLV Rebels basketball team is a focus of pride in Southern Nevada. The team is also the focus of community disappointment in that games are so rarely televised. That disappointment is enhanced by the fact that many of the games that are televised are done so through channels not available to large numbers of people.

Gate receipts and television revenue help drive UNLV’s athletic programs. However, UNLV is also a publicly funded university — the public deserves more than it is seeing.

Future television contracts should include delayed, free programming for public television. For example, a game played and televised on a Thursday or Friday could be aired on public television on the following Sunday afternoon.

Such a plan would give the public more for its investment in education, give public television new popular programming and expand the fan base.

EVAN BLYTHIN

LAS VEGAS