The 2023 Major League Baseball season is upon us, and I’ll once again be left without a way to legally watch my favorite team — the Chicago Cubs.

This problem is not unique to me or Cubs fans, for that matter. Every year, MLB’s blackout restrictions leave millions of people without a practical way to watch their favorite team. Iowa gets hit the hardest.

However, one thing is clear: In the age of cord-cutting, MLB and its teams need to modernize and make their games more available on streaming services, whether it’s MLB.tv or somewhere else.

To begin, let me explain what MLB’s blackout restrictions are.

MLB’s streaming service, MLB.tv, bars users from watching teams that are close to them, forcing them to watch the game with a cable provider or streaming service that broadcasts live sports like Hulu Live or YouTube TV.

All 30 teams have most of their games broadcast on a different channel, many of which are regional, and MLB wants to keep those broadcasters and cable providers happy by ensuring they have priority over broadcasting rights. However, MLB is giving fans the short end of the stick.

In Iowa, we face blackout restrictions for six different teams, which is more than any other state.

Iowans who are fans of the Minnesota Twins, Milwaukee Brewers, Cubs, Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, or Kansas City Royals are all unable to watch their favorite teams with MLB.tv.

That’s especially annoying when you consider that some of Iowa’s main cable packages don’t offer the channels some of these teams are on. More people are getting rid of their cable providers in favor of streaming services, many of which also don’t offer the channels these teams are on. This leaves Iowans without a practical way to watch their favorite teams.

For example, Marquee Sports Network, the channel that broadcasts the majority of Cubs games, isn’t available on Hulu Live or YouTube TV, which are the two most popular streaming services that offer live TV.

While MLB might think this will incentivize people to get new cable providers, I don’t know if that’s necessarily true.

When Marquee Sports Network was taken off Hulu Live — the streaming service I freeload off my dad to watch live TV — we didn’t get a new cable provider. We just settled for watching highlights on YouTube.

A lot of people who want to watch their favorite team live that badly are just streaming games illegally on SportsSurge.net or using VPNs to bypass blackout restrictions.

Back in 2021, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said fixing the problem of blackout restrictions in Iowa was a top priority. Yet, here we are in 2023 without a solution.

Earlier this year, Iowa State Rep. J.D. Scholten, a Democrat from Sioux City, introduced House File 577, which would prevent media entities from blacking out MLB games in the state.

It remains to be seen whether this bill will be passed. Even if it is signed into law, it’s unclear if the bill will have any effect on the current situation.

By restricting fans from watching their favorite teams on MLB.tv, MLB — a league whose popularity has been steadily declining — is only digging itself into a deeper hole and ensuring that viewership will continue to drop.