Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio
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Genre | Major League Baseball |
---|---|
Running time | 3 hours (approximate) |
Country of origin | US |
Home station | ESPN Radio (1998–present) |
Starring | Jon Sciambi Doug Glanville Marc Kestecher |
Original release | March 31, 1998 – Present |
Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio is the brand name for exclusive play-by-play broadcast presentation of
History
In 1997, ESPN Radio outbid CBS Radio to become the exclusive national radio broadcaster of Major League Baseball beginning the following year. CBS Radio had been the national radio broadcaster since 1976.
The agreement lasted seven years through 2004 and gave ESPN Radio the rights to broadcast numerous games including Sunday Night Baseball, Saturday Game of the Week, Opening Day and holiday games, September weekday pennant race games, the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby, and all of the playoffs, including the World Series.
In 2004, ESPN Radio extended the deal with a five-year, $55 million dollar contract extension through the 2010 season.
The agreement also added a weekly program devoted to baseball, which became The Baseball Show from 3 p.m.
Coverage overview
As previously mentioned, in beginning in the 1998 season, ESPN Radio took over from CBS Radio as the official, national radio broadcaster for Major League Baseball. The network's contract with MLB currently runs through 2028, and as of 2022, Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio is part of ESPN Radio’s main lineup, instead of in an opt-in/opt-out basis as in previous years. However, affiliates retain the ability to opt out of broadcasts involving in-market teams during the regular season.
The games include Opening Day,
In addition to affiliate stations on AM/FM radio, ESPN Radio's game broadcasts are carried as part of
Since June 2011, the games can also be heard online at ESPN Radio.com and on mobile devices via the ESPN app and other applications such as TuneIn. They can also be heard on televisions using connected devices (such as video game consoles) via their respective iHeartRadio and TuneIn apps. Previously, rights restrictions prevented ESPN Radio.com from live-streaming the games. Despite MLB not enforcing blackouts for radio coverage, game coverage on the ESPN mobile app and TuneIn are restricted to listeners in the United States and that are located outside the markets of both teams involved in that broadcast, regardless if said teams are home or away.
Broadcasters
As of 2022, the primary ESPN Radio crew for Sunday Night Baseball consists of
For other regular season games (especially Saturday games), different play-by-play announcers are often used with Glanville remaining as analyst. This is mainly due to Sciambi’s unavailability as he is also the play-by-play announcer for Chicago Cubs games televised on the Marquee Sports Network. Backup play-by-play announcers for MLB on ESPN Radio included John Schriffen, Karl Ravech and Roxy Bernstein among others.
Sciambi and Glanville also call the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby each year.
As of 2018, Dan Shulman called the
For the 2020 season, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sciambi and Singleton called each game working remotely, rather than at the ballpark. For the 2020 postseason, they and all of ESPN Radio's announcers called the games from the ESPN studios in Bristol, Connecticut.
See also
- ESPN Major League Baseball
- Baseball Tonight
- Sunday Night Baseball
- Monday Night Baseball
- Wednesday Night Baseball
- ESPN Major League Baseball broadcasters
- Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio broadcasters
- Major League Baseball Game of the Week
- List of Major League Baseball All-Star Game broadcasters
- List of American League Division Series broadcasters
- List of National League Division Series broadcasters
- List of American League Championship Series broadcasters
- List of National League Championship Series broadcasters
- List of World Series broadcasters
References
- Press Release: ESPN RADIO AND MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL EXTEND AGREEMENT THROUGH 2010
- Press Release: MLB Post-Season: Every Game on ESPN Radio[permanent dead link]
- MLB, ESPN agree on record eight-year deal