Rumor: Baseball Coming to Sirius
Major League Baseball may find its way to the Best of XM package for Sirius subscribers. Let me start by saying that this is speculation with some serious smoke signals indicating that it is true. Various telephone calls to customer service at Sirius seem to indicate that an announcement will be made regarding an upgrade to the Best of XM package for people that subscribe to Sirius. That upgrade is Major League Baseball.
A SiriusBuzz reader contacted me with the news this morning, and with a few phone calls, there seems to be some legitimacy to the rumor. Whether there will be additional fees to consumers who wish to get baseball has not been made clear. Also unclear is if there are additional costs to Sirius XM associated with the move.
One thing is certain. The addition of baseball would be a good thing for those that get the “Best Of” programming, and from a consumer standpoint it will add value to the package. I would have preferred to see this news prior to the season beginning, but getting baseball at all on Sirius in 2009 is a win for consumers, and a demonstration that merger synergies are happening.
With a slumping economy, satellite radio, as much as baseball can benefit from this. The more subscribers that buy the “Best Of” programming, the better. Speculation is that the programming will not start until June, but perhaps, with the leak having happened we will hear something at the Q1 conference call or the annual meeting.
“Best Of” includes NFL for XM. The inclusion of MLB on Sirius’ “Best Of” will be a major victory.
According to customer service reps, they received and email saying that “We are hoping to have MLB baseball on the Best of XM Package by the second week in June”
Thanks Muscle
Position – Long Sirius XM Radio
what a week ahead
Hold on
Long live siriusxm
Go longs!!!!!!!!!!!
wow. I hope this is true.
I am ready to finally pull the trigger and listen to the MLB.
The “Best of XM” is the only way Oprah will ever make it onto my stiletto…
I just leased a new car and had XM installed as an option and got best of Sirius for Howard and the NFL, Nascar.
The only reason I did not get Sirius with Best of XM was because I wanted the MLB piece.
I guess it really doesn’t matter either way now as long as you get all MLB games XM on best of and all NFL games on Sirius best of.
Anybody know ?
Tyler – Did you make any calls to customer service to confirm? I really don’t trust these customer service guys at all, even though I spoke with 2 of them.
Personally, I would appreciate all the readers calling customer service like I did, to see if we can all confirm this rumor. I have been waiting to hear if Baseball is going to be on Sirius since the merger happened. Let’s get to the bottom of this!
Muscle – what did they tell you ?
They told me what Tyler wrote. I emailed Tyler Brandon and Ryan this morning to try to get them to follow up on what customer service told me. I am hoping all you guys will do the same as me and follow up with customer service. I would like to hear if all the reps are saying the same thing.
sxminvestor – Here is customer service’s number. Call them and post what they say here. Thanks. I would really like to get many people to confirm.
1-888-539-SIRIUS (7474)
I am reading on SatWaves forums right now people debating whether or not this rumor is true.
BUT it absolutely amazes me that nobody on the websites is willing to pick up a phone besides me to try to call customer service to confirm.
Sometimes I think people on the net have an IQ of 3. I really do. Pick up the phone people.
I just called customer service rep who firstly just said to me that we could get MLB Home Plate and they presently don’t have a contract for the games. Then I prodded him on the rumour that I heard and he then said he would put me on hold to talk to his manager to see if there is anything that he may not know.
Here is where it gets interesting.
When he came back on, he said to me there is nothing to report right now, but I can keep trying. So I said to him, there could be something announced on Monday o Tuesday and he said possibly or he said yes, I forget his exact phrasing.
I felt like he was hiding something that he was not allowed to let out yet.
How about calling back and asking him about whether baseball will be available in June on Best of XM?
You asked if something is going to be announced and you heard a rumor?
Good Lord I really can’t believe what I am reading. People on the net…………
Ok, now you are getting insulting to me. I called and told you what he said. If he was allowed, he obviously would have told me it would be available on June 1st.
No reason to call again for me. There is something to what Tyler posted because I sensed it in his response.
Tyler – Please tell me you called to confirm. I don’t deal well with people sensing and feeling. Thanks!
Email from Tyler
“I got the same type of indication when I called. I wrote that in the article”
Thanks Tyler. I would like others to confirm as well.
Just got this email from Sirius. I keep trying. I wish others would
Dear ——
We appreciate the time you have taken to contact us regarding MLB games on SIRIUS. We are here to assist you!
—–, we are thrilled that you would like to hear MLB games on The Best of XM! SIRIUS has discussed adding MLB to the package, but at this time, we do not have an agreement to do this. We continue to be hopeful that at some point, we will be able to add MLB to our great lineup.
Please continue to visit our website for our current line up, schedules and programming highlights. For information on our sports programming, please visit the link below:
http://www.sirius.com/sports
This does nothing for me because I still cannot get best of XM without ripping out my custom stereo system and replacing the sirius receiver and paying $75 to transfer my lifetime sub to the new $300 receiver plus the add on of best of XM lifetime sub for $150.
add the installation charges and I’m looking at $700.
I still love my sirius, but it would be super cool if they would get their heads out of the sand and instead of trying to milk the extra subscription fees out of customers, merge it all as one service and make a much more attractive product that in the long run will attract many more subscribers, and drastically improve subscriber retention.
anything new on this subject?
5 days later and I have not seen any new information.
fingers crossed.
Did anyone notice that 184 was moved to 113? 184 on xm is an mlb channel! I wonder if that means they are going to have mlb in time for the playoffs, and the channels are going to be the same for sirius and xm. Maybe that is why they changed the weather channel. Does anyone know why that of all channels were moved? to free up 174 to 189 maybe?
Like many others, I waited all this past season for something that never came to pass. All I want to know is, will I need to buy an XM separate, or Mirge radio to get the baseball I was tgold I’d get by both the store salesman, and “customer service” – joke – before the 2009 season.
I got a new car this fall (with XM free for 3 months.)
I have a lifetime Sirius sub, and it was a no-brainer to consider adding baseball to a new in-dash Sirius head unit and moving my sub to the new radio…until I found out that Sirius does not have ANY plans to add MLB to the mix until 1) Hell freezes over 2) the MBL commissioner retires 3) Pete Rose makes the hall of fame and/or 4) the existing contract expires completely and MLB is left out of satellite radio completely forcing them to reconsider their position of requiring an ADDITIONAL, SEPARATE contract with the new SiriusXM to allow Sirius subscribers to listen to MLB, not just that lame-ass home plate show.
Finally, as far as functionality of the factory radio, my PNP Replay is more usable and user-friendly (a common complaint IIRC for in-dash factory units: no remotes, no direct first screen channel entry, non-scrolling information display.) However service on my PNP will never be able to be upgraded. I will have to buy a new unit to get baseball.
Rest assured that there is no amount of programming (short of moving football to XM only) that will make me buy a new Sirius radio of ANY kind until MLB shows up in the Sirius “best of” package or a Sirius MLB-only add-on.
Why?
1) I could live the rest of my life without ever hearing Oprah ever again (on tv OR radio!)
2) I think golf on radio makes no sense. Ditto car racing
3) I put the Virus in the Howard Stern category (that is: “Who cares”),
4) I have boycotted the NBA for 15 years as a bunch of overpaid thugs who act like wanna-be gangsters off the court.
So maybe Sirius can strike a deal before the start of the 2010 MLB season, now that they have $100 million in free cash flow and 258,000 new subscribers for 2009-10.
Sorry. That was 257,000 new subscribers.