Yankee and Met fans will be able to stream home games to their smartphone or tablet when the season starts, The Post has learned.
Major League Baseball is expected to announce in the next few days a deal with a national distributor, like a wireless provider, to stream local games of every MLB team, a source close to the situation said Thursday.
To stream games of the New York teams, fans would have to be a customer of the distributor and pay for the YES Network or SNY, the regional sports networks (RSNs) that carry Yank and Met games, respectively.
The price to stream has not yet been set.
MLB is currently the only major sport that does not stream games of local teams. MLB.com streams every baseball game, but blacks out local games to protect its teams’ deals with RSNs.
Dennis Plummer, 60, of Manhattan, said die-hard Yankee fans like himself are always looking for more ways to catch a game.
“It gives you options,” he said. “I’ve been following the Yankees ever since 1963. Since the price went up so much at Yankee Stadium, I’ve watched games on the YES channel basically whenever I can.”
Fans could also catch up on games they missed.
“I’m not able to catch all the games that I want because I travel,” said banker Marcelo Fontanelli, 49, of Hell’s Kitchen. “I’m very excited. If you’re going to have something where I can watch the games on my cellphone, that would be amazing.”
The deal is expected to put pressure on YES, SNY and other RSNs to work out a similar deal with MLB.
Talks between MLB and Fox Sports, which owns 15 RSNs, including YES; Comcast, which owns six, including a minority stake in SNY; and DirecTV, which owns four, have been on-again, off-again for more than a year.
The talks have accelerated in the last two weeks, and both sides are optimistic a deal will be reached before Opening Day, April 6. Under that agreement, fans would deal directly with their pay-TV provider.
However, the talks are at a crucial stage and may not be done by the season opener.
A deal between MLB and the RSNs is expected to allow fans to stream local games at no extra charge.
Team owners are pushing to get local games streamed so they can charge RSNs more for media rights. MLB hopes to attract younger fans who use streaming.
An MLB rep would say only that talks between the league and RSNs and a national distributor were ongoing. Fox and Comcast declined comment.
Additional reporting by Matt Abrahams