Following MLB.TV’s Opening Day streaming issues, the Cleveland Guardians are stepping up to the plate. In a letter to subscribers of the CLEGuardians.TV streaming service on Friday, the team announced it will be offering free tickets as an apology for “the inconvenience to your first game viewing experience.”
According to the message, the Guardians are providing affected viewers with four complimentary upper reserved tickets to a home game of their choice in April or May, excluding the already sold-out April 8 home opener. Details on how subscribers can obtain their tickets will be released next week. “We recognize that despite the excitement for the start of the Guardians 2025 season, the debut of CLEGuardians.TV encountered some technical difficulties during yesterday’s game,” the message states. “There was a temporary outage affecting live game streams across the league on MLB.TV that was resolved as quickly as possible.”
You are forgiven, @MLBTV pic.twitter.com/sp15mIeHOI
— Ohio’s Tate (@BarstoolTate) March 28, 2025
While the Guardians were not the only team affected by Thursday’s Opening Day outage, the streaming experience was particularly disappointing for Cleveland as this marks the first year that MLB has taken on the role of the franchise’s media rightsholder. Throughout the offseason, the team promoted CLEGuardians.TV — priced at $99 for the season — as its main broadcasting platform, only to announce just hours before Thursday’s game that a deal had been struck to also distribute games on local television for most cable subscribers.
Though the MLB.TV outage only impacted the early part of Thursday’s game — a 7-4 victory over the Kansas Royals in extra innings — it’s understandable that fans were frustrated by these technical difficulties, especially on Opening Day. Nonetheless, the Guardians deserve credit for offering free tickets, ensuring subscribers won’t miss out on at least one game this season due to streaming issues.
