Where Can You Watch San Diego Padres Games Now that MLB Has Taken Over Broadcasts?
Major League Baseball executives celebrated a win this week, as the league will officially take over broadcasting duties for the San Diego Padres on Wednesday, May 31. This ends the Padres’ relationship with Bally Sports San Diego that began in 2012 when the channel was called Fox Sports San Diego.
That’s good news for fans because it pulls one more team out of the sinking regional sports network boat. It’s bad news for fans because, for over a decade, audiences in the San Diego area always knew where to find Padres games that weren’t on national broadcast channels. Now, that certainty has likely been replaced with confusion in many instances.
Fortunately, The Streamable is here to help guide you through your options, both in and out of the San Diego market.
Where Can In-Market San Diego Fans Find Padres Games on Local TV Now?
There are several linear TV choices for watching Padres games on pay TV in San Diego. AT&T U-verse, Cox, DIRECTV, Fubo and Spectrum will all have options for watching Padres games locally on television now that the team has left Bally Sports San Diego behind.
| Provider | Channel |
|---|---|
| DIRECTV/DIRECTV STREAM | 694-3 for DIRECTV, 694 for DIRECTV STREAM |
| AT&T U-Verse | 781 Standard Definition, 1781 High Definition |
| Spectrum (San Diego, Palm Springs, and Yuma El-Centro) | 305 |
| Spectrum (Hawaii) | 250 |
| Cox: Available on California Yurview | 4 |
| Fubo | Will Notify Subscribers |
Can In-Market Padres Fans Stream Games Without a Pay-TV Subscription?
Yes! For the first time in the history of the service, MLB.TV will offer an in-market streaming option for San Diego fans. Users will even get a special offer from the service: Padres games will stream for free on MLB.TV until June 4, and after that users can sign up for $19.99 per month, or $74.99 for the rest of the regular season.
The MLB.TV subscription will not allow in-market San Diego fans to watch the rest of the league’s out-of-market contests, nor will it give users the ability to stream any Padres games that are shown on national TV.
How Can Out-of-Market Padres Fans Watch Games?
The good news for out-of-market Padres fans is that there will be no change in how they get Padres games, other than the scoring and informational graphics on the screen. The Bally Sports branding will be gone, but MLB.TV will still stream Padres games to out-of-market fans, so long as they aren’t being shown nationally.
Will Any Other MLB Teams Leave Bally Sports RSNs This Season?
Hard to know for sure, but it’s very likely. Bally Sports’ parent company Diamond Sports Group (DSG) is working through bankruptcy court even now, trying to restructure its billions of dollars in debt and work out a path to financial viability. As part of that plan, the company will give up on broadcasting contracts with teams that it no longer makes money off of.
For its part, MLB is quite eager to get the rights to those teams back. If DSG surrenders the rights to any more teams this season, the league will take over broadcasting duties just like it did for Padres games this week. MLB has been working diligently with teams that could be dumped by Diamond to find broadcasting partners in those markets and will be ready to go with alternatives for fans when rights revert back to clubs.
MLB.TV
MLB.TV is the official streaming service of Major League Baseball. You can see every out-of-market game live or on demand, and choose home or away TV and radio feeds. The app allows fans to watch up to four games simultaneously on the same screen through their Multi-view feature. MLB.TV can be added to your Sling TV or Prime Video subscription.