Practical Explainer | September 14, 2026

Two fans can open the same app, click the same game, and get completely different results.

One watches it on League Pass.

The other gets a blackout message.

A third opens Thunder+, DAZN, Prime Video, or a team-specific MLB service and watches without a problem.

Nothing is wrong with the stream.

The service is doing exactly what the media-rights contracts require.

That is the easiest way to understand sports blackouts: A blackout is not really about preventing you from watching a game. It is about preventing the wrong distributor from showing you the game.

The modern sports-media system divides live games by geography, distribution platform, and exclusivity. Once those pieces are assigned, the technology simply enforces the contractual map.

And as regional sports networks disappear and teams launch more direct-to-consumer products, that map is changing fast.

For most U.S. professional sports, think of a game as potentially sitting inside three different rights buckets:

That is why an Oklahoma City fan may need Thunder+ for a locally televised Thunder game while a fan in another state can watch the same game through NBA League Pass.

Thunder+ is designed for fans inside the Thunder's five-state home territory. NBA League Pass, by contrast, is principally an out-of-market product in the United States. The Thunder expressly tells fans that League Pass will not provide access to locally restricted Thunder games inside the team's market.

The product changes.

The game does not.

The difference is the right to distribute it to that particular viewer in that particular place.

Sports rights are often discussed as though someone simply owns "the television rights."

That is usually much too broad.

Rights can be divided by:

Different agreements can control different pieces.

In practice, a league may sell a national package to large media companies while individual clubs retain—or receive authority to exploit—certain local games within defined territories. The league may separately operate an out-of-market product.

That produces the structure fans actually experience.

The NBA, for example, currently has long-term national agreements with Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon. National games appear across ABC/ESPN, NBC/Peacock, and Prime Video. At the same time, clubs operate or license separate local packages, and NBA League Pass distributes hundreds of games outside the applicable local markets.

Those systems overlap.

Blackouts prevent them from colliding.

This is where the terminology becomes misleading.

A team's "local market" does not necessarily mean the city where it plays.

It can cover enormous geographic areas.

The Grizzlies' new DAZN arrangement, for example, covers a seven-state territory: Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, Alabama, Missouri, portions of Illinois, and eastern Arkansas. DAZN will carry the Grizzlies' locally available games there beginning in 2026–27.

The Dallas Stars' regional territory includes Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Fans there can watch non-national Stars games through Prime Video beginning this season, while fans outside that territory use the NHL's out-of-market products.

So "local" can mean hundreds of miles away.

These territories are commercial constructs. They define where the local rights package has priority.

And that produces one of the most common complaints in sports media: "I live nowhere near the arena. Why am I still blacked out?"

Because proximity to the arena is not the legal question.

The relevant question is whether your location falls inside the team's contractual television territory.

NBA League Pass makes the logic unusually explicit.

The NBA says blackout restrictions exist because local and national content providers possess certain exclusive live rights. In the United States, League Pass blacks out both the applicable local team or teams and nationally broadcast games.

That sounds backward until you remember what League Pass is selling.

It is primarily selling out-of-market access.

Imagine a Thunder fan living in Oklahoma City.

For a normal locally distributed game:

Thunder+ / authorized local distributor has the local right.

League Pass therefore steps aside.

Now move that same fan to Boston.

The Thunder game is no longer local to the viewer. Assuming it is not a national exclusive and no other restriction applies:

League Pass can show it.

Same subscription platform.

Same basketball game.

Different geographic rights.

This is the part that confuses people most.

Thunder+ is accessible through the NBA App.

League Pass is also accessible through the NBA App.

Yet one may show the Thunder game and the other may not.

That is because the app is not the right.

The app is merely the storefront or technical delivery system.

Thunder+ is a local-rights product. NBA League Pass is an out-of-market package.

The fact that both streams travel through NBA infrastructure does not merge their underlying licenses.

The NBA's own storefront now displays local offerings such as Thunder+, Suns+, Pelicans+, Jazz+, BlazerVision, Spectrum SportsNet+, and others alongside League Pass. The league expressly describes the local products as having no local blackout, while still being subject to national exclusivities.

That distinction is essential:

No local blackout does not mean no blackout.

It usually means: We have acquired the right to show you locally televised games inside this territory.

It does not necessarily mean: We can override ESPN, NBC, Prime Video, Apple, FOX, or another national partner when that partner owns an exclusive national window.

Now suppose the Thunder game is chosen for an exclusive national broadcast.

The analysis changes.

If the national contract gives that partner exclusive rights to the game, Thunder+ may not carry it live even though the viewer is inside the Thunder's home territory.

The same principle appears across team products.

Suns+ says all locally broadcast Suns games are available but national-exclusive broadcasts are not. Pelicans+ similarly excludes exclusive nationally broadcast games.

Major League Baseball makes the distinction especially visible by publishing team-specific lists of national exclusives.

A Braves.TV subscriber, for example, can stream Braves local broadcasts in-market without local blackouts, but games designated as national exclusives on outlets such as Apple TV, FOX, NBC/Peacock, or ESPN are unavailable through Braves.TV because those games are not treated as local broadcasts for that purpose.

This gives us a useful hierarchy:

National exclusive → national partner

If no national exclusive:

Inside home territory → local rights holder

Outside home territory → out-of-market package

That simple framework explains most blackout questions.

Baseball historically generated some of the country's most frustrating blackout complaints because MLB's home television territories can extend across large regions.

But its newer direct-to-consumer offerings help illustrate how blackouts can disappear when the rights structure changes.

MLB now offers in-market streaming options across all 30 clubs, although the specific structures and prices vary. For many clubs, a team-branded local product such as CLEGuardians.TV, Braves.TV, Angels.TV, or Dbacks.TV allows a customer inside the home television territory to watch the local broadcasts without the traditional local blackout.

Traditional MLB.TV remains fundamentally an out-of-market product.

MLB's terms explain that home-territory restrictions can apply based on the viewer's physical location, including through IP-address information.

So a Guardians fan can encounter this:

In Cleveland: CLEGuardians.TV for the local game.

In Denver: MLB.TV for that Guardians game.

If ESPN or Apple has an applicable national exclusive: the national service instead.

The blackout did not vanish because somebody repealed a rule.

MLB obtained—or reorganized—the rights necessary to sell a separate in-market product.

That distinction matters.

The labels change. The architecture does not.

NHL Power Play through ESPN provides more than 1,000 out-of-market games. Local-market blackouts still apply.

Meanwhile, clubs are constructing local products.

Beginning in 2026–27, Prime Video will serve as a local streaming home for six NHL clubs, including Carolina, Anaheim, Columbus, Dallas, Minnesota, and St. Louis. Availability depends on the relevant club's regional territory.

Dallas offers an especially clean example:

Again:

local product, out-of-market product, national product.

Three different licenses.

Not merely from the ZIP code on your credit card.

Streaming services can use combinations of:

The NBA says League Pass blackouts are based on a user's current location and can rely on IP address or device location services, with ZIP codes used to determine which teams fall inside the local broadcaster's territory.

MLB likewise states that geographic restrictions depend on physical location and may be determined through factors including IP address.

That is why traveling can change what you are allowed to watch.

Some local products expressly allow temporary travel access. Suns+, for example, permits subscribers to continue using the service while traveling domestically for up to 30 consecutive days before requiring access again from within the viewing territory.

Rules vary by product.

The general lesson is that streaming rights follow location far more precisely than cable rights once did.

This may be the single biggest misconception.

Fans often talk about "blackout laws."

For most modern local NBA, MLB, and NHL streaming restrictions, that is not what is happening.

The FCC once maintained federal sports-blackout rules tied largely to circumstances in which leagues or broadcasters withheld local over-the-air games. But the FCC repealed those regulations in 2014. In doing so, the Commission expressly recognized that future blackout practices would be left to private contractual arrangements rather than FCC enforcement.

That does not mean government law is irrelevant to sports broadcasting.

It means the message on your screen usually reflects private exclusivity rights, not a federal official ordering the game blocked.

The Sports Broadcasting Act is another source of confusion. Federal law gives the major professional team sports a limited antitrust exemption for certain league-wide agreements involving the pooled sale of rights in "sponsored telecasting."

That statute helps explain part of the legal architecture supporting collective sports broadcasting.

But it does not mean Congress personally drew your team's streaming territory or requires League Pass to black out Tuesday night's game.

Those details generally arise from contracts and league media structures.

Some fans still associate "blackout" with the historical NFL rule under which a home game could be unavailable locally if the stadium failed to sell enough tickets.

That is a different concept from modern streaming blackouts.

Today's NBA, NHL, and MLB territorial restrictions generally concern which media company owns the live distribution right in a particular location.

So when League Pass says your hometown team is blacked out, it usually does not mean:

The team failed to sell tickets.

It means:

Another distributor has the exclusive local right to show you this game live.

Using the same word for both systems has probably caused decades of unnecessary confusion.

If you are trying to figure out where a game should be available, ask these questions in order:

If yes, start with the national rights holder.

For the NBA, that can mean ABC/ESPN, NBC/Peacock, or Prime Video under the current national agreements.

For MLB, current national packages include partners such as FOX, Apple TV, NBC/Peacock, ESPN, TBS, and certain Netflix events, depending on the game and package.

For the NHL, ESPN/ABC and TNT carry national-exclusive inventory, along with designated streaming windows.

If yes, look for the local broadcaster or local direct-to-consumer product.

Examples include Thunder+, DAZN for the Grizzlies, Suns+, a club-specific MLB product, or a team's local Prime Video offering.

Now the league's out-of-market package generally becomes relevant:

NBA League Pass.

MLB.TV.

NHL Power Play / Center Ice.

That is the basic system.

Everything complicated tends to be a variation on those three questions.

Not in the United States.

League Pass sells the games for which League Pass has live rights in your location. The NBA expressly subjects it to local and national blackouts.

Commercially intuitive. Contractually backward.

League Pass is valuable precisely because it distributes games outside the local rights holder's protected territory.

Usually only local blackouts are gone.

National exclusivities can still remove individual games from the package.

The software platform and the media right are separate things.

One app can host several different licensed products.

The opposite.

Modern technology could show virtually every game everywhere.

The restriction exists because the contracts deliberately prevent it.

Most consumer frustration occurs at the edges of the contractual map.

A fan believes a ZIP code has been assigned to the wrong territory.

Two teams' territories overlap.

A national selection removes a game from a local subscription.

A carriage agreement expires.

An RSN fails or enters bankruptcy.

A platform believes it acquired streaming rights while another party says those rights were reserved.

A customer travels and encounters new geolocation restrictions.

Those issues can become more than customer-service problems.

For teams and media companies, the contracts must precisely define:

That last point has become especially important after the collapse of multiple RSN structures.

The sentence defining who gets the games after a missed payment can suddenly be worth millions.

There is good news for fans.

Local direct-to-consumer options are expanding quickly.

MLB said by July 2026 that every club had some DTC streaming option. NBA clubs increasingly offer services such as Thunder+, Suns+, Pelicans+, BlazerVision, and team-specific partner products. NHL clubs are moving onto Prime Video, team-operated networks, and other digital platforms.

The bad news is that the disappearance of one RSN does not necessarily produce one replacement.

Instead, fans may need to understand:

Which territory am I in?

Is this a local or national game?

Which product holds those rights?

Is my subscription local or out-of-market?

That is why the next phase of sports media may simultaneously eliminate traditional blackouts and create a new navigation problem.

The industry increasingly can make every game available.

The challenge is making it obvious where.

Because your friend is out of market. You are inside the territory protected for the local distributor.

National-exclusive games are generally carved out of those local products.

Usually not. Read it as no local blackout for games included in the local package, subject to national exclusivities and other stated restrictions.

Because MLB uses home television territories, not a simple distance-from-the-ballpark rule.

Usually yes. The NBA currently says locally blacked-out games become available on League Pass on demand three days after the live broadcast; nationally blacked-out games generally become available at 6:00 a.m. Eastern the following day.

Some are. The concept is not.

Local DTC services increasingly remove the need for traditional local streaming blackouts. But as long as sports leagues sell exclusive national, local, and out-of-market packages to different buyers, those boundaries still have to be enforced somehow.

The name may change.

The underlying exclusivity will remain.

The easiest way to understand a sports blackout is to stop thinking about the screen.

Think about the contract.

A live game can be sliced into separate rights:

national, local, out-of-market, territorial, streaming, broadcast, and more.

Your location determines which slice applies to you.

Your subscription determines whether you bought access to that slice.

And a blackout appears when the service you opened does not own the live right that applies where you are.

That is why the same fan can need DAZN in Memphis, Thunder+ in Oklahoma, Braves.TV in Georgia, Prime Video inside an NHL territory, and League Pass or MLB.TV after moving across the country.

The technology has never been better at delivering the game.

The complicated part is deciding who is legally allowed to press play.