Rabid baseball fans who happen to own Sonos wireless audio systems have something extra to celebrate this opening day. Sonos has announced a partnership with MLB.com/GameDay that makes streaming audio from any of the MLB’s 2,430 regular season games and all post-season games available for a paltry $20.
This is the first dedicated sports service for Sonos, which has seen exponential growth over the last year.
According to MLB.com, the service provides subscribers with access to audio from any Major League Baseball game with no blackouts, plus the option to listen to home, away, or alternate feeds (when available). According to MLB.com, the game audio will be synced with pitch-by-pitch coverage, and batter and pitcher stats, available via desktop computer application.
This audio-only service manages to avoid blackouts restrictions where the MLB’s video services are otherwise restricted. MLB.TV, and MLB.TV Premium both offer HD video feeds of live games, along with a DVR feature making it possible to pause or rewind live games on a variety of connected devices, including game consoles, Roku, Apple TV, TiVo DVRs, and select smart TVs. Subscribers to the premium video service get the added ability to watch on mobile devices. However, these video services are subject to baseball club blackout rules; the audio service is the only way to ensure live access to every single baseball game played throughout the year.
Sonos’ wireless audio systems allow multi-room audio synced throughout a home for a seamless room-to-room listening experience. Sonos’ entry-level Play:1 speakers (reviewed here) are available now for $200 each at Amazon, but will require the purchase of a Sonos Bridge to get up and running. Sonos also makes the popular Play: 3 and Play: 5 speakers for a bigger sound experience, as well as the PlayBar sound bar and Sonos Subwoofer, all of which can be mixed and matched to work together as part of a surround system, or independently for multi-room listening.
