Getting the Giants Spring Training Broadcasts Sorted
The Giants' spring training home is Scottsdale Stadium in Arizona, and the TV coverage for their Cactus League games runs throughNBC Sports California along with regional sports networks and national outlets when applicable. For the 2023 schedule, most games are televised locally onNBCS California, with some matchups broadcast on the MLB Network or local Arizona stations depending on opponent and timing. If you're trying to figure out how to actually watch these games, here's what you need to know beyond just looking at a schedule page. Spring training TV is nothing like the regular season. The broadcast rights are split across multiple networks, and they change from game to game. Some days you're locked intoNBCS California. A few games get picked up by MLB Network nationally. And if you're in the Scottsdale area, you might catch certain contests on a local Fox affiliate or similar station that carries Cactus League games without a sports network subscription.
I spent a lot of 2023 trying to map this out for friends who wanted to follow the team through camp. The first thing I learned was that the Giants' official website posts a spring training schedule with TV info listed next to each date, but it's not always complete or accurate for every single game. RSN rights shift, and sometimes a game gets moved to a streaming platform last minute. You'll run into this if you rely solely on the printed schedule. My workaround was to check three sources before committing to watching anything: the Giants' official spring training page for the base schedule, the MLB.com spring training page which aggregates TV info from all clubs, andTV Listings via DirectTV or CableTV.com to verify what your specific provider carries on a given day. It takes about ten minutes per week instead of just glancing at one source and getting burned when the game isn't where you expected it to be. Here's a practical breakdown of what the 2023 broadcast landscape looked like:
NBC Sports California carries the majority of Giants spring training games. This is your primary channel if you have a cable or live TV streaming package that includes regional sports networks. Games typically air on weekday afternoons and some weekend afternoons, with first pitches usually around12:05 PM or1:05 PM Arizona time. MLB Network picks up a handful of games throughout the stretch. These are usually the more notable matchups against teams like the Dodgers or Padres when both clubs are in town. If you don't have MLB Network on your package, those games disappear from your local RSN and there's no backup local broadcast. Streaming options exist too. Sling TV's Orange and Blue packages carryNBCS California in the Phoenix market. YouTube TV and Hulu + Live TV also carry the channel in most areas. But here's the catch that nobody mentions until it's too late: your location determines whetherNBCS California is available to you at all. If you're outside the Giants' designated streaming territory, you will hit a black screen even if the channel is technically part of your package.
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I ran into this exact problem last March when I was trying to set up a viewing party for four people spread across two different states. Two of us gotNBCS California fine. The other two were blacked out because their home addresses fell outside the allowed streaming footprint. The workaround was pulling up the MLB.GAMA app and checking what the actual blackout policy was for each person's zip code before the season started. You can't fix this after the fact, and customer service won't help you reroute the stream. For the 2023 spring training window, games run roughly from late February through late March. The exact dates shift year to year based on the schedule structure. Most years there are about30 spring training games total for the Giants, with roughly25 to27 of them televised on some channel. If you're watching in person at Scottsdale Stadium, you don't need any of this TV info at all, but the stadium doesn't offer live video board streams or anything useful for people who show up early and want to follow other games while waiting. That's a small but real frustration if you're a regular at camp.
One thing beginners miss about spring training TV: the broadcast windows are much shorter than regular season games. Spring training games average around two hours instead of the three-hour regular season norm. That means if you're scheduling around work or other commitments, you can plan tighter blocks. But it also means if a game goes extra innings or there's a rain delay, the broadcast can run long enough to overlap with evening programming, and networks rarely adjust the schedule proactively. The biggest pitfall I see people hit is assuming that having a streaming service withNBCS California means they can watch every Giants spring training game from anywhere. It doesn't work that way. The RSN feeds are geographically restricted, and the restriction enforcement is stricter for spring training than for the regular season because the rights holders treat camp as a promotional window with tighter controls. If you travel during spring training and expect to watch games back home, you'll likely get blocked unless you use a VPN, which violates most streaming terms of service anyway. For the most reliable approach: pick your cable or streaming provider, confirmNBCS California is included in your local market, check the Giants' spring training schedule page a week before camp starts to note which games are on MLB Network or national outlets, and verify those channels are in your package too. It takes maybe fifteen minutes total and saves you from missing games you thought you could watch.
There's no single app or one-page resource that lists every Giants spring training broadcast for 2023 with full accuracy because the information is fragmented across multiple leagues, networks, and streaming platforms. The closest thing to a comprehensive guide is a combination of the Giants' own schedule page, the MLB.com spring training broadcast schedule, and your personal provider's channel lineup for the dates you care about. That's just how it works. Nothing about spring training TV is particularly elegant, but it's straightforward once you stop expecting it to be simpler than it actually is.
