NHL Minnesota Wild Blackouts

Jon, are you sure you are either subscribed to (1) Sports Pack or (2) Premiere Package?

Yes - Sports Pack

Hi @chad05380, we'll be happy to check on the Wild games for you.

For determining blackouts and game availability on DIRECTV, they are based on your service address/Zip Code.

We went ahead and checked some of the major zip codes for Cedar Rapids and found only 3 included the Wild games with the Sports Pack, 52227, 52228, and 52233.

The others we checked, 52324, 52338, 52401, and 52497, did not have the Wild as an in-market team. They would need the NHL Center Ice to view the games on DIRECTV.

If your zip code wasn't listed above, please let us know what it is and we'll be happy to check it for you.

As far as why you were able to use the Fox Sports Go app to view them, game availability may be handled differently for internet streaming than for traditional broadcast like DIRECTV. 

Please let us know if this helps 

Jeff, AT&T Community Specialist

My zip code is 52402.

That seems really strange that certain parts of the same city would be in-market and other parts would be out-of-market.  52233 borders my zip code and is on the north side of the city.  52227 and 52228 are on the southern fringes of the city.  It's almost as if some zip codes got missed or something.

If you are in Choice or higher you get your in-market RSNs and specific teams. www.directv.com/rsn

The Sports Pack will not help. Out-of-market teams/RSNs will still blackout professional games. The only way to get out-of-market games is with the corresponding seasonal subscription (such as NHL Center ICE), which only covers in-season games.

So that Sports Pack is more for college games, regional events, and occasionally pre/post game coverage. If in Family or Select, it is a cheaper way to get your in-market coverage than raising to Choice. Depends on cost of Entertainment with Sports Pack or Choice which has RSN fee on which option is cheaper.

Your area has so many RSNs that the list is cut off at the bottom. Select text/highlight and try to drag down with mouse or arrow keys, should force the additional info to pull up to viewable. Workaround doesn't work in all browsers. They desperately need to reformat the RSN pages to list more than one column, or at least have a vertical scroll bar.

By pulling the list up like I mentioned, the Wild do show but only in Premier/Lo Maximo. They are not in Choice so the RSN/team has required to be in a higher option for where you live.

As for if it must be Premier, or just the Sports Pack (as Premier includes it) is uncertain. Though the blackouts you experience would suggest Sports Pack by itself doesn't count.

One possibility, check your local channels. If a local gets the rights to the game then you watch it there instead of the RSN (Local takes priority over Regional). If by chance this is the case, but DirecTV doesn't carry that local, then a regular over-the-air (OTA) antenna would be the option.

Thanks Juniper.  I'm aware of how that works, and the Wild games are not carried on local stations here. 

It is nice living in an area with so many RSNs you can't see them all on the screen.  My trick for seeing them all is using Firefox, right-click in the middle of the list and choose This Frame > Show Only This Frame.

I think the main problem really is that somewhere, somehow, there are zip codes missing from somebody's system.  Whether that's the NHL or DirecTV, I have no idea.  That's the only reason I can think of why parts of Cedar Rapids are blacked out and other parts aren't.  I checked some surrounding communities and found ALL of these are listed as having Wild games available on directv.com/rsn:

Iowa City 52240, 52246 (25 miles south)

Mount Pleasant 52641 (75 miles south)

Muscatine 52761 (50 miles southeast)

Clinton 52732 (75 miles east)

Dubuque 52201 (60 miles northeast)

Waterloo 50702 (50 miles northwest)

So there are parts of Cedar Rapids where the Wild are blacked out for no apparent reason.  If you were to make a coverage map based on the zip codes, there would be several holes in it over Cedar Rapids.  I don't follow soccer at all, but the same issue seems to exist for Minnesota United FC.  They are available in all of the above zip codes I tried, but not for parts of Cedar Rapids.

You may need to contact the RSN. Since DirecTV is reflecting their current top package only for your zip covering the team you want, then that should be the information provided to DirecTV by the RSN. Having holes of coverage amidst all the regional markets is odd, but not impossible. Sports leagues have their reasons for how market lines are drawn.