T-Mobile Brings Back MLB.TV Deal, Teams With Patrick Mahomes to Go After Sports Fans

T-Mobile is bringing back its MLB.TV offer, and is making a new pitch to get sports fans to switch over to its new, premium Go5G Plus plans. On Monday the carrier teamed up with Patrick Mahomes, star quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs and part owner of MLB's Kansas City Royals and MLS' Sporting KC, to try and lure new users. 

As part of the new campaign, T-Mobile announced that it would be bringing back its MLB.TV offer from Tuesday, May 23 through Monday, July 17. As before, T-Mobile users (as well as Metro by T-Mobile users and T-Mobile Home Internet subscribers) can claim the perk in the company's T-Mobile Tuesdays app. 

MLB.TV, which gives new and existing users access to Major League Baseball's out-of-market streaming service and runs $140 for the rest of the baseball season, has long been given away by T-Mobile but subscribers usually need to claim the offer around the start of MLB's season. In the past, if they didn't claim it during that window, they usually missed out on the perk. 

Read more: CNET's MLB.TV review

Beyond MLB.TV, the carrier also touts that it gives out free subscriptions to Apple's MLS Season Pass (normally $99 for the season) and a year of ViX Premium (normally $60 a year), a Spanish-language streaming service that offers the UEFA Champions League.

T-Mobile is also pitching that customers who switch to the carrier's Go5G Plus plan get a $200 prepaid Mastercard that can be used for other sports streaming services (with Mahomes and the carrier not-so-subtly suggesting in a video on Twitter that they use the card for NFL Sunday Ticket, which streams on YouTube TV starting this season). 

As it's a generic $200 prepaid card, it can also be used for other items (like paying your phone bill or groceries) and not just sports streaming services. 

These users also need to be new lines to T-Mobile. Unlike its device pitch for Go5G Plus -- which the carrier promises that existing users get the same deal as new users on new phones every two years -- you can't be an existing Magenta user who upgrades to Go5G Plus and qualify for the prepaid card deal. Existing users who want the prepaid card need to be on Go5G Plus and then add new lines, with only the new lines eligible for the $200 card.