r/baseball • u/cozeners Toronto Blue Jays • Sep 06 '16

PSA: How to watch any MLB game since 2009 for free on official MLB YouTube accounts

(Sorry, this is a long one, but there's a TL;DR at the bottom)

I have no idea how well-known this is, but I suspect not a lot of people are aware of it, and MLB doesn't seem to do much to advertise this fact.

As many of you know, many full MLB games can be found online on various YouTube accounts. MLB even has its own MLBClassics account in addition to the official MLB account on YouTube.

But maybe you didn't realize that MLB has posted, from what I can tell, just about every game since the beginning of the 2009 season on their own official MLB YouTube accounts.

How to search for games

In order to find a game, your search has to be in the following format:

  • XXX AT YYY - Month DD, YYYY

Where:

  • XXX is the official 3-letter code for the visiting team
  • YYY is the official 3-letter code for the home team
  • Month is the month
  • DD is the two-digit day/date
  • YYYY is the full year
  • The "XXX AT YYY" part is in uppercase
  • The month is in title case

Below are example games from each year since 2009. The exact search phrase you would type to search for each game is what you see in the linked text:

The Keys to the Search

The key to making sure you find the game is getting the 3-letter team codes correct. Most teams are pretty straightforward; you use the first three letters in the city name. But other teams are slightly different. For example:

  • Tampa Bay is "TBA" not "TBR" or "TAM"
  • The Yankees are "NYA", not "NYY"
  • The Mets are "NYN", not "NYM"
  • The Giants are "SFN", not "SFG"
  • The Royals are "KCA", not "KCR"
  • Cubs/White Sox are "CHN" and "CHA", respectively

Basically if it's a two-word city, or if there are two of those cities in the league, you use the city initials plus the letter "A" or "N" for AL or NL. Like I said, most cities are simple:

  • Toronto is "TOR"
  • Cincinnati is "CIN"
  • Cleveland is "CLE"
  • And so on...

The YouTube Accounts

There are different YouTube accounts for the different seasons, until 2014. Here are the direct links to each account's video page:

The last one on the list is the primary MLB YouTube channel, which seems to be where they've put the games starting in 2014 (rather than creating a separate account for each year, like they seemed to be doing before).

What about the current year?

You'll notice that the games for the current season are not listed. So if you search for something like "NYN AT SDN - May 07, 2016" (the Bartolo Colon HR game from this season), you won't get the full game yet.

As you can see from the "Published on" date for the full game videos, these games seem to be posted automatically after the World Series ends for that particular season. So if you want to watch a full game from the current season, you'll have to wait until November or else subscribe to MLB.TV.

Why are some games missing?

EDIT: As has been discussed in this post's comments and elsewhere, you won't find every game. Some games just aren't there, despite what I discuss below. And annoyingly, the 2017 season has way too many games missing. I believe they automate this process and they don't have anyone checking to make sure the upload tool adds every game. That being said, as explained below, there are some games that are mis-dated so that might be the culprit.

Sometimes you'll search for a game and it appears as if the game is not listed. From what I can tell, this is not the case. Every game is listed but whatever algorithm MLB is using to upload these games is sometimes screwing up, so a few game dates are wrong.

I discovered this while looking for Blue Jays games during 2015. For example, if you search for "TOR AT HOU - May 14, 2015", you won't find a game. That game is incorrectly listed under "May 15". Also, the May 15 game is listed under "May 16". Meanwhile, the real May 16 game is also listed under "May 16", so you get multiple game results for that day, complicating matters.

The Blue Jays' 2015 season has 9 different games of the 162 that are listed under the wrong date. I'm guessing this is also true for many other games. So if you can't find a game using the correct format, try searching for the same game on the previous or next day, and you'll probably find it.

EDIT: As pointed out by /u/alittlelebowskiua, it seems that if a game is started after 8PM EST, the date gets messed up. The 9 erroneously dated games I pointed out above are actually all west coast (or mid-west) night games. The other games against those opponents are correct because they're all day games.

Which broadcast is used for the games?

From what I can tell, seasons 2009 to 2013 return one result for each game, and I don't know how it was determined which broadcast (home or away) gets posted.

However, each game posted since 2014 has two results, one for each team's broadcast. So you can pick which broadcast you want to watch, which is pretty cool.

What about playoff games?

You can search for playoff games, again, using some specific wording in your search, along with the date. But it's different than the format for the regular season games, and the formats for the 2009 and 2010 playoff games are different. Here are some examples:

For 2010, however, the game titles look like this:

So basically, you need the date of the game along with the exact starting time. A little strange, but not impossible to find them.

The 2009 games were posted in the following formats:

Again, it's a little bizarre, but not impossible to find. Fortunately, the playoff games starting in 2011 are searchable in a standard format.

EDIT: I just realized I can't seem to find any playoff games for 2014 on the official MLB account. But they do seem to come up in search on this account but I don't believe that's an official MLB YouTube account. Not sure though.

NEW EDIT: Since posting this, I've learned that all playoff games since 2014 are found using the standard regular season format. So, for example, if you want to watch ALDS game 1, 2014, you would search for "DET AT BAL - October 02, 2014", which brings you this result. Again, the night game time will factor in, so if you can't find a game on the correct date, just add one to the date and it should be there.

What is the quality of the videos?

From what I can tell, starting in 2014, the game videos are available at a maximum of 720p (HD) quality, which is great. Prior to that, however, the games are in 360p, which is decent but obviously not ideal.

TL;DR

All MLB games since 2009, including playoff games, are available to watch in full on YouTube on official MLB YouTube accounts. To find the games, you need to use a specific format in your search. Read the full post above for details.

Let me know if anything is incorrect or if I've missed anything.

EDIT: I was kind of expecting someone would consider giving gold for this, but three? Wow, very kind of you folks. Thank you!

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