Editor’s note: Cascadia Daily News introduces a new occasional column, Home Field Advantage, covering local, regional and national sports.
What a memorable season for the Seattle Mariners. There’s catcher Cal Raleigh, whose astonishing home run numbers and down-home demeanor made him one of the game’s biggest stars (albeit with the worst nickname) in the majors.
There’s the Mariners themselves, who, astonishingly, appear to be a legit playoff team after a regular season that ended with Seattle topping the AL West for its first division title in 24 years.
Too bad so much of Bellingham and Whatcom County didn’t get to see it.
Because of limited broadcast agreements, if you wanted to see the Mariners on TV regularly and were an out-of-market viewer too far from Seattle to get a broadcast signal — that’s us — you had to be a subscriber to only Comcast Xfinity or DirecTV, or be willing to jump through hoops and spend extra on services like Fubo.
If you weren’t, you missed a season of magic. Lots of us did.
Local Seattle Mariners fans watch the American League Divisional Series at Schweinhaus Biergarten. (Nick Zeller-Singh/Cascadia Daily News)
Playing catch-up in the playoffs
Thanks to the postseason, everyone can watch Mariners games now, with Bellingham viewers able to tune in to Fox and FS1 starting last weekend for the best-of-five American League Division Series between Seattle and Detroit.
There’s plenty of room on the late-season bandwagon. Raleigh, aka The Big Dumper, is baseball’s first switch-hitter and catcher to hit 60 home runs. He’s the leading contender for the AL MVP award, up against Yankee part-time player Aaron Judge.
Fans hope this is the year the Mariners shed the embarrassing label of the only team left in the majors to never play in a World Series. And isn’t it about time to replace the 1995 Edgar Martinez double/Griffey sliding home highlight reel — happy 30th birthday! — with something else? Please?
We missed out. And might yet again. Watching the hot-ticket Mariners next year is still an open question for us here in Bellingham and Whatcom County.
With the demise of regional sports network ROOT Sports, the Mariners have a golden-trident opportunity to re-capture a vast Pacific Northwest market, where the closest Major League Baseball teams are San Francisco to the south and Arizona and Colorado east. Including Alaska and western Canada, that’s a lot of territory.
But will they take it?
Seattle Mariners’ Jorge Polanco watches the ball after hitting a solo home run Oct. 5 during the sixth inning in Game 2 of baseball’s American League Division Series against the Detroit Tigers in Seattle. (John Froschauer/AP Photo)
Will Major League Baseball do right by Bellingham?
The Mariners recently announced that Major League Baseball, through MLB.TV, will be distributing its telecasts through cable providers and streaming platforms. The subscription fee, as well as which providers and platforms, have not been announced.
We’re not just talking TV when we say watching the Mariners over the past few years hasn’t been easy. This is the first time since 2022 they made the playoffs, and the buzz is big — time to cast a big net to capture fans who couldn’t watch before. Like so many of us in Bellingham.
If baseball is looking for a broadcast model to reach the masses, it doesn’t have to look far. In its fourth season, last year, the National Hockey League’s Seattle Kraken finally got it right, making games available to practically anyone with a paid cable or satellite TV subscription.
“We’ve seen our viewership increase by three times over previous seasons,” said Chris Brumwell, Kraken senior vice-president for broadcast and media relations. “The response has been wonderful.”
Starting with this preseason’s 4-2 opening win over Edmonton on Wednesday, Oct. 1, the Kraken Sports Network will produce and broadcast all 73 non-national games for distribution on KING 5, KONG and other stations as well as Prime Video. The Kraken was the NHL’s first team to directly partner with the Amazon streaming service.
After initial seasons with limited viewership, Brumwell says the club has made good on its promise that 96% of fans in Washington, Oregon and Alaska could watch through existing basic cable and streaming.
“We want to keep that momentum going and make sure fans continue to tune in,” he said. “Whether they’re new fans or long-term hockey fans, we want to keep them coming back.”
Chance to recover, grow Mariners’ fan base here
In a splintered sports media environment where viewers have growing choices competing with a traditional sport like baseball, Bellingham is Exhibit A.
You need only to check the local bar scene to know the NFL and soccer, not Mariners baseball, are the broadcasts of choice, and not just due to the behemoth World Cup tournament that will bookend Bellingham with games in Vancouver and Seattle next summer. The Sounders, Reign and Premier League soccer draw year-round here.
Winning is key. But blame the viewing situation, in part, for the Mariners’ losing — or failing to grow — a fan base here. Bellinghamsters clearly like baseball. Witness the popularity of the Bellingham Bells, an increasingly popular, affordable, family-oriented alternative.
Can’t watch the Mariners on TV? We have other ways to stoke our adrenaline. We’ve got our trails, our mountain bikes, our watercraft to paddle, our vegetable gardens to tend, Lake Padden to circumnavigate, pickleball to play.
But if you’ve never been a part of a community where the sports team goes on a run, it’s a magical thing to be part of. It’s like the Rapture, except everyone stays put. You don’t have to be a baseball fan, or fan of anything except the collective experience. And couldn’t we all use some of that these days?
Major League Baseball isn’t expected to announce its Mariners’ broadcast plan until the beginning of next season. Until then, enjoy watching the playoffs, everybody. Hopefully, we don’t have to wait a year for all of us to see the Mariners again.
Fans cheer before Game 2 of baseball’s American League Division Series between the Seattle Mariners and the Detroit Tigers. (Lindsey Wasson/AP Photo)
Home Field Advantage is a sports column focused on local, regional and national issues written by Meri-Jo Borzilleri, a journalist and former 20-year sportswriter.