Slingbox allows you to send the signal from the TV you have it plugged into (in/at your house) so you can view it elsewhere – on a laptop, to your mobile or even elsewhere in the house. No one else can access your Slingbox output (you have to input a 20-number/letter code) but still major League Baseball is well, crying like a baby even though there’s no crying in baseball – that Slingbox is not playing fair and they want to take the ball home (CNET).

Basically, if you are a Mets fan here on the West Coast, the only way to get most of their games is to buy the MLB Extra Innings package for the TV or sign up for MLB.com’s internet videocast service, MLB.TV.

Their fear makes no sense (well, other than the outright 100% greed factor) because for me to use a Slingbox to watch Mets games here in SF, I would need to find someone in NY willing to let me hook up a Slingbox in their house to their DSL/cable AND cable TV box. Not exactly like bringing up a website.

Part of it is MLB’s own fault, if they didn’t have idiotic “territorial” blackouts, such as if you live in Montana and Seattle is playing, there are some games you can’t get because after all, you might decide to get in your car and drive 3 days to Seattle to see the game live but if it were on TV, you might not go … even if you paid a couple hundred dollars for MLB Extra Innings, they don’t want to risk dissuading you from driving 1,200 miles.

Here’s the map of the West Coast and what team has what territorial rights … Seattle is the bright green.

Here is the US …

Full sized map at Wikipedia.

It should be noted that countries like Venezuela, Cuba & North Korea all agree on the 200-mile extension as their territorial rights but baseball’s Seattle Mariners needs more than 1,000 miles?

200 miles baby, 200 miles – all you need, all you get.