MLB is getting harder to watch with the amount of ad creep I’ve noticed

That's fair. Whenever I can get a pirated stream, I genuinely enjoy the big blue MLB logo and total silence where the ad-breaks are supposed to be.

I actually dropped watching the NHL because covering the ice in ads started bugging me too much.

Never got into NHL, but I'm down in Texas, so... I do feel like the live games are getting better entirely due to the relative lack of ads everywhere.