National Football League (NFL)
Pre-season
While select pre-season games might appear exclusively on the national networks (CBS, FOX, NBC and ESPN), most pre-season games are televised live only on local broadcast stations or regional cable networks.
NFL Network (available in the Xfinity Digital Preferred tier of service or the More Sports & Entertainment Package, depending on where you live) carries every pre-season game on either a live or delayed basis. On occasion, Xfinity may be required by the NFL or a local team to black out the NFL Network's feed or a pre-season game because a local broadcast station is airing the same game. In this case, you may just need to change the channel to find the game you're looking for.
Regular Season
Regular season games on local stations are decided by the NFL. Typically, games where the road team is from the National Football Conference (NFC) airs on FOX, while games where the road team is from the American Football Conference (AFC) airs on CBS. Normally, the local team game airs on the home team's local FOX or CBS affiliate station whether they're playing at home or away. A local NFL team can also enforce a blackout of its home games under the NFL's blackout policy if the game is not sold out. This generally occurs in very few areas.
In addition, six teams play stand-alone, nationally televised prime time games on Thursdays (CBS and/or NFL Network), Sundays (NBC) and Mondays (ESPN). The Monday and Thursday night games on ESPN and the NFL Network also air on a local stations in the home markets of the participating teams.
Xfinity offers
NFL RedZone in our More Sports & Entertainment Package. This channel appears only on Sundays during the regular season, and it provides live "look-ins" of all games and extensive highlights so you can see all the big plays, no matter where you are.
Post-seasonAll NFL Playoff games are televised nationally, and early-round playoff games are subject to the NFL's blackout policy if a game is not sold out.
Major League Baseball (MLB)
Pre-season
Few Spring Training games are televised locally or nationally. In the event that the same pre-season game is televised nationally and locally, the national network is blacked out because the game will air on another channel in the local market.
Regular Season
Over the course of the MLB's season, nationally televised games may air on FOX, ESPN, FS1, FS2, TBS and the MLB Network. Local blackouts of national networks are common because virtually all games are televised in each team's local market either on a local broadcast station or regional cable network. These local/regional airings are never blacked out. This means you'll rarely miss your home team games. You may just need to change the channel to find the game you're looking for.
For an additional fee, you can purchase the MLB EXTRA INNINGS pay per view (PPV) package, a collection of most of the televised games from other markets. Most games in the MLB EXTRA INNINGS package that are subject to blackout are those also carried by your local station/regional cable network.
Post-season
All MLB Playoff games are televised nationally, and they are not subject to any blackouts. Sometimes the schedule isn't determined until the last minute, as one day's television schedule sometimes depends on the outcome of the previous day's game(s).
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