I’ve been an MLB.TV evangelist for some time now. My deep love for the game of baseball has led me to subscribe to baseball’s streaming service, still probably the best in sports, for over a decade now. While the local blackouts are still a nuisance, I really do love the ability to stream almost any game live across my devices. But I really discovered one of the hidden gems of the service during the height of the pandemic, when I was stuck at home with no baseball to watch on TV. That’s when I decided to relive the Cubs World Series run from 2016, because you can go back through historical games and stream them once more to relive them.
But not all of them, it seems. There are two very specific games that MLB appears to be trying to memory-hole, graying out the ability to stream their historical broadcasts. And the reason why is very obvious.
It’s been two years since Oakland A’s fans joined forces to make one of the loudest statements possible with a “reverse boycott,” showing out in force to a Tuesday night game to protest against A’s owner John Fisher and his plan to move the team.
Now, on the two-year anniversary of the forceful demonstration, those same A’s fans are noticing that both game broadcasts have been removed from MLB’s digital archive. In fact, an SFGATE analysis found the Rays-A’s game on June 13, 2023 is the only MLB game in the entire month of June 2023 where the broadcasts are unavailable for viewing on the MLB.TV archive.
This came to light when one person, who attended this particular game, and happened to catch a foul ball during play, asked for help finding the broadcast online so he could relive that moment. An ExTwitter account dedicated to the Oakland fandom replied, with receipts.
Now, the context here explains what is surely MLB’s motive behind this idiotic move. The “Reverse Boycott” game in Oakland was a major stain on the team and, to a lesser degree, on Major League Baseball. The team’s ownership has failed to invest in the team and the park for many, many years. As a result of that, attendance at A’s games over the past three decades has been low, often times competing for the lowest attendance in the entire league. A’s ownership cited this as an excuse for wanting to move the team, first to a temporary stadium in Sacramento, of all places, and eventually to a brand new stadium being built in Las Vegas.
Well, when Oakland locals caught wind of this, they decided to make a point. And that point was not, “We won’t go to games.” Instead, it was, “We’ll be happy to go to the games if ownership actually invests in the team, or sells it.” And so, through the power of the internet, A’s fans whipped up support for the “reverse boycott,” and packed the stadium with fans who were adorned with messages to ownership of the team and who chanted throughout the game demanding the sale of the team. That resulted in a broadcast filled with those chants and images like the ones below (if you go to the link above, there are many, many more).
It was enough to make national news, even outside of the sports desk. And then, because of how time works, the national attention the reverse boycott achieved was whisked away as the news cycles progressed. The team is playing in Sacramento for now and they get made fun of for it. The team broke ground on its Vegas stadium recently and is dealing with some bad press about the small amount of public money its receiving for the project combined with its soaring budget. But all that angst hasn’t really resulted in a national remembrance of the reverse boycott game.
Until now! Because that’s how the Streisand Effect works. MLB attempted to hide an embarrassing day from the public that pays for a service so that they can watch historical games, and now we’re all talking about it again.
“One deplorable thing @mlb did regarding the #ReverseBoycott is completely wipe it from their database,” Last Dive Bar wrote on Instagram. “… Speaks volumes about MLB’s insecurities that they’d go through the trouble of deleting it from their game archives.”
It is unclear how long the videos have been unavailable to view, but Johansen said it’s been a while. “It’s kind of like our unofficial job to know those things,” Johansen told SFGATE.
Johansen said he assumed someone asked MLB to remove the game from the archives, and referenced how MLB has previously edited highlights to hide signs imploring Fisher to sell the team.
So, because MLB decided to demonstrate just how paper-thin its skin is, the reverse boycott game is back in the headlines. Good job?