Thanks to a media contract dispute and Major League Baseball's infuriating television blackout zones, Seattle Mariners fans who live in Alaska will have an extremely difficult time watching live games played by their favorite team next season.

Alaska's largest cable provider, GCI, decided not to renew its contract with Root Sports, the MLB-licensed "Regional Sports Network" that exclusively televises the majority of games in a Seattle Mariners season, and instead has signed up with MLB Network.

GCI told the trade publication Multichannel News that Root Sports was asking for too much of a price hike to renew the contract. Root has countered by blaming GCI and telling people who are upset to switch their service to a competitor.

That decision should please non-Mariners fans because MLB Network features a huge variety of games and other content. But the problem for Mariners fans (aside from the team finishing above .500 just twice in the last eight years) is that MLB Network does not show Mariners games in Alaska due to its regional blackout policy.

Read more, here, and for a decent walk-through of baseball's insane blackout rules in relation to the Mariners and Alaska, read SB Nation's Rob Neyer's post, here.