For decades, spring training has been the mark of a new phase of the year, highlighted by baseball in the summer. If you’re a baseball fan, you’re likely interested in watching your favorite team play in spring training. It seems quite simple, like a normal regular season game: turn on the TV, check the channel, and they’re there.

However, spring training is different. If you see a tweet with someone explaining how they can’t watch a spring training game, that’s exactly how it sounds. Most games aren’t even televised, and most teams only televise 10-15 games per spring training. Some teams even have small streaming apps, like the Bally Sports app or the YES app, but networks still don’t put spring training on the air.

Spring training baseball is as important as NFL, NHL, and NBA preseason events, which are all available to watch to some extent. One example of games that weren’t televised was Jacob deGrom and Carlos Rodon in their first look in their new uniforms. There’s absolutely no excuse for those games to be unavailable.

Spring training would be the perfect time to test out MLB’s contingency plan for when/if Bally Sports and any other RSNs are forced into bankruptcy, likely using MLB.TV. There’s no excuse not to be able to watch a baseball game when there’s one on.