Major League Baseball on television
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MLB broadcasts would later shape the emerging medium of cable television. In particular, out of market baseball would attract customers to superstations in the late 20th Century, such as WGN and WTBS airing Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves games, respectively. MLB also played a big role in the growth of ESPN since it began airing games in 1990. TBS, the national feed spun off from WTBS, has also aired nationally televised games since 2007. MLB itself launched its own cable network in 2009, MLB Network, which would also air several live games a week. And MLB broadcasts have been shown on Fox's various sister cable networks, with Fox Sports 1 airing games since 2014.
MLB began streaming games via the internet in 2017, with Twitter and Facebook initially acquiring the rights to some games. YouTube has since streamed games since 2019, and both Apple TV+ and Peacock also have streamed games since 2022.
Games not picked up by one of the national outlets are instead broadcast by local broadcast stations and regional sports networks, televising their respective local team within their respective region. A number of nationally televised games are also non-exclusive, meaning that the national telecasts may also air in tandem with those of the game by local broadcasters.
As the only team in Canada, the TV rights to the Toronto Blue Jays are a special case: Blue Jays games are aired nationally in that country, with Sportsnet holding the rights since 1999. Sportsnet also carries other MLB games simulcast from a U.S. feed.
National television broadcasters
United States
Terrestrial television:
- ABC: 1948–1950; 1953–1954; 1959–1961; 1965; 1976–1989; 2020–present
- The Baseball Network (a joint venture between Major League Baseball, ABC and NBC): 1994–1995
- CBS: 1947–1951; 1955–1965; 1990–1993
- DuMont 1947–1949
- Fox: 1996–present
- Baseball Night in America: 2012–present
- NBC: 1947–1989; 1996–2000; 2022–2023 (one game only per season)
Cable television:
- ABC Family Channel: 2002
- ESPN: 1990–present
- Fox Family Channel: 2001
- Fox Sports Net: 1997–2001
- Fox Sports 1: 2014–present
- FX: 1997-2001
- MLB Network: 2009–present
- TBS: 2007–present
- USA Network: 1979–1983
Internet television
- Apple TV+: 2022–present
- Facebook: 2017–2019
- Peacock: 2021 (Phillies vs Giants series); 2022–2023
- Twitter: 2017–2018
- YouTube: 2019–2022
Timeslot | Network(s) | Years |
Sunday afternoon/morning | 1959–1964; 1987; 2022–2023 1959–1965; 1990–1991 1979–1987 2008–2021 2022–2023 | |
Sunday night | ABC
|
1990–present 2021 |
Monday night | 1967–1975 1976–1988 1992–1993; 2002–2022 1994–1995 1997 2020; 2022–present 2020–present | |
Tuesday night | ESPN TBS |
1990–1993 2022–present |
Wednesday night | ESPN Fox Sports 1 MLB Network |
1990–2021 2020–present 2022–present |
Thursday night | 1979–1983 1989 1997–1999 2000–2001 2003–2006; 2017–present 2009–present 2019–present | |
Friday night | ESPN The Baseball Network (NBC) Apple TV+ |
1990–1993 1994–1995 2022–present |
Saturday afternoon | 1953–1954; 1960; 1965 1955–1965; 1990–1993 1957–1964; 1966–1989 1996–present 2014–present | |
Saturday night | The Baseball Network (ABC) FX Fox |
1994–1995 2000–2001 2012–present |
Canada
As presently the only MLB team in Canada, all Blue Jays games are also aired nationally in that country. These rights are negotiated by the team itself, not MLB, with all games currently airing on the co-owned Sportsnet and Sportsnet One in English, while TVA Sports has French-language rights to selected Blue Jays games. Games that are designated as exclusive to digital platforms (in Canada, this involves games airing on Apple TV+) are the only Blue Jays games that do not air on the Sportsnet channels. Other Canadian broadcasters have carried these games in the past, with TSN being the team's main carrier from 1984 to 1998 (and in a lesser role until 2009), and CBC and CTV also providing national coverage of some games at various points over the course of the team's history.
United Kingdom
Major League Baseball has been broadcast on a regular basis in the UK since the 1980s. Initially shown on Channel 4, it was also aired on satellite channel Screensport and following Screensport's closure in March 1993, Sky Sports took over as the UK's broadcaster.
In 1997, newly launched terrestrial broadcaster
In 2006,
In 2013 BT Sport launched and picked up the rights held by ESPN UK, which included Major League Baseball. BT Sport showed MLB throughout its decade on air, broadcasting many games each week. This was supplemented by ESPN-produced baseball magazine shows, including Baseball Tonight.
In 2023, TNT Sports replaced BT Sport and it continues to air Major League Baseball, but without the ESPN-produced programming.
Since 2019, a small number of games have been broadcast by the BBC. This began when the Corporation aired coverage of the inaugural MLB London Series.[4] In 2022, the BBC signed a new deal for the London Series, and this also gave the BBC rights to show games played in America for the first time.[5]
History
First broadcast
After the
1953–1959
In
CBS took over the Saturday Game in 1955 (the rights were actually set up through the Falstaff Brewing Corporation,[12]) retaining Dizzy Dean and Buddy Blattner as the announcers and adding Sunday coverage in 1957.
In
1960–1965
In 1960, ABC returned to baseball broadcasting with a series of late-afternoon Saturday games. Jack Buck and Carl Erskine[16][17] were the lead announcing crew for this series, which lasted one season.[18]
ABC typically did three games a week. Two of the games were always from the
By 1964, CBS' Dizzy Dean and Pee Wee Reese worked Yankee Stadium, Wrigley Field, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. New York got $550,000 of CBS' $895,000. Six clubs that exclusively played nationally televised games on NBC[21] got $1.2 million.
On July 17,
ABC paid $5.7 million[24] for the rights to the 28 Saturday/holiday Games of the Week. ABC's deal covered all of the teams except the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies (who had their own television deals) and called for two regionalized games on Saturdays, Independence Day, and Labor Day. ABC blacked out the games in the home cities of the clubs playing those games.
1966–1975
On October 19, 1965, NBC signed a three-year contract with Major League Baseball. The year before, NBC lost the rights to the Saturday–Sunday Game of the Week. In addition, the previous deal limited CBS to covering only 12 weekends when its new subsidiary, the New York Yankees, played at home. The new package under NBC called for 28 games compared to 1960's three-network 123.
Under the new deal, NBC paid roughly $6 million per year for the 25 Games of the Week, $6.1 million for the 1967 World Series and 1967 All-Star Game, and $6.5 million for the 1968 World Series and 1968 All-Star Game. This brought the total value of the contract (which included three Monday night telecasts) up to $30.6 million.
By 1969, Major League Baseball had grown to 24 teams and the net local TV revenues had leaped to $20.7 million. This is in sharp contrast to 1950 when local television brought the then 16 Major League clubs a total net income of $2.3 million. Changes baseball underwent during this time, such as expansion franchises and increasing the schedule from 154 games to 162, led to a wider audience for network and local television.
From 1972–1975 NBC televised Monday games under a contract worth $72 million. In 1973, NBC extended the Monday night telecasts (with a local blackout) to 15 straight. On September 1, 1975, NBC's last Monday Night Baseball game, in which the Montréal Expos beat the host Philadelphia Phillies 6–5.
In the aftermath of the thrilling
1976–1989: ABC and NBC alternate coverage
Under the initial agreement with ABC, NBC, and Major League Baseball (1976-1979), the two networks paid a combined $92.8 million. ABC paid $12.5 million per year to show 16 Monday night games in 1976, 18 in the next three years, plus half the postseason (the League Championship Series in even numbered years and World Series in odd numbered years). NBC paid $10.7 million per year to show 25 Saturday Games of the Week and the other half of the postseason (the League Championship Series in odd numbered years and World Series in even numbered years).
Major League Baseball media director John Lazarus said of the new arrangement between NBC and ABC "
In the 1970s the cable revolution began. The
In
On April 7, 1983, Major League Baseball, ABC, and NBC agreed to terms of a six-year television package worth $1.2 billion. The two networks would continue to alternate coverage of the playoffs (ABC in even numbered years and NBC in odd numbered years), World Series (ABC would televise the World Series in odd numbered years and NBC in even numbered years), and All-Star Game (ABC would televise the All-Star Game in even numbered years and NBC in odd numbered years) through the 1989 season, with each of the 26 clubs receiving $7 million per year in return (even if no fans showed up). The last package gave each club $1.9 million per year. ABC contributed $575 million for regular season prime time and Sunday afternoons and NBC paid $550 million for thirty Saturday afternoon games.
By 1986, ABC only televised 13 Monday Night Baseball games. This was a fairly sharp contrast to the 18 games that were scheduled in 1978. The Sporting News believed that ABC paid Major League Baseball to not make them televise the regular season. TSN added that the network only wanted the sport for October anyway.
Breakdown
- 1983 - $20 million in advance from the two networks.
- 1984 - NBC $70 million, ABC $56 million, total $126 million.
- 1985 - NBC $61 million, ABC $75 million, total $136 million.
Note: The networks got $9 million when Major League Baseball expanded the League Championship Series from a best-of-five to a best-of-seven in 1985.
- 1986 - NBC $75 million, ABC $66 million, total $141 million.
- 1987 - NBC $81 million, ABC $90 million, total $171 million.
- 1988 - NBC $90 million, ABC $96 million, total $186 million.
- 1989 - NBC $106 million, ABC $125 million, total $231 million.
Major League Baseball on CBS and ESPN: 1990–1993
On December 14, 1988,
The deal with CBS was also supposed to pay each team $10 million a year. A separate deal with cable television would bring each team an additional $4 million. Each team could also cut its own deal with local television. For example, the
On January 5, 1989, Major League Baseball signed a $400 million deal with
The roll out of ESPN, followed by
On April 15,
The Baseball Network: 1994–1995
After the fall-out from
Under a six-year plan, Major League Baseball was intended to receive 85% of the first
Arranging broadcasts through The Baseball Network seemed, on the surface, to benefit NBC and ABC since it gave them a monopoly on broadcasting Major League Baseball. It also stood to benefit the networks because they reduced the risk associated with purchasing the broadcast rights outright. NBC and ABC attempted to create a loss-free environment for each other.
After NBC's coverage of the 1994 All-Star Game was complete, NBC was scheduled to televise six regular season games on Fridays or Saturdays in prime time. The networks had exclusive rights for the 12 regular season dates, in that no regional or national cable service or over-the-air broadcaster may telecast an MLB game on those dates. Baseball Night in America usually aired up to 14 games based on the viewers' region (affiliates chose games of local interest to carry) as opposed to a traditional coast-to-coast format. ABC would then pick up where NBC left off by televising six more regular season games. The regular season games fell under the Baseball Night in America umbrella which premiered on July 16, 1994.
In even numbered years, NBC would have the rights to the All-Star Game and both League Championship Series while ABC would have the World Series and newly created Division Series. In odd numbered years the postseason and All-Star Game television rights were supposed to alternate.
The long-term plans for The Baseball Network crumbled when the players went on
In the end, the venture would lose $95 million in advertising and nearly $500 million in national and local spending.
Also in 1994, ESPN renewed its baseball contract for six years (through the 1999 season). The new deal was worth $42.5 million per year and $255 million overall. The deal was ultimately voided after the 1995 season and ESPN was pretty much forced to restructure their contract.
Baseball comes to Fox and stays with NBC: 1996–2000
Soon after the Baseball Network fiasco, Major League Baseball made a deal with Fox and NBC on November 7, 1995. Fox paid a fraction less of the amount of money that CBS paid for the Major League Baseball television rights. Unlike The Baseball Network, Fox went back to the tried and true format of televising regular season games (approximately 16 weekly telecasts that normally began on Memorial Day weekend) on Saturday afternoons. Fox did however, continue a format that The Baseball Network started by offering games based purely on a viewer's region. Fox's approach has usually been to offer four regionalized telecasts, with exclusivity from 1–4 p.m. in each time zone. When Fox first got into baseball, it used the motto "Same game, new attitude."
Under the five-year deal (from 1996–2000) for a total of approximately $400 million, NBC didn't televise any regular season games. Instead, NBC only handled the All-Star Game and the American League Championship Series in even numbered years and the World Series and National League Championship Series in odd numbered years, in addition to three Division Series games in each of these five years.
Also in
1996 also marked the launch of MLB's out-of-market sports package, MLB Extra Innings. Debuted exclusively on DirecTV, the service allowed fans to watch regionally televised broadcasts of out-of-market baseball games.[31]
Beginning in 1997, Fox entered a four-year joint venture with Liberty Media Cable (which resulted in the placement of a Thursday night baseball game on Fox Sports Net alongside an FX Saturday night game, Fox Family would later replace Fox Sports Net) worth $172 million. The deal called for two games a week that aired games on its choice of two weeknights other than Wednesday, with no exclusivity.
2001–2006: Fox and ESPN
In September 2000, Major League Baseball signed a six-year, $2.5 billion contract with Fox to show Saturday baseball, the All-Star Game, selected Division Series games and exclusive coverage of both League Championship Series and the World Series. Fox's sister network FX also aired numerous Major League Baseball contests on Saturday nights in 2001.
Under the previous five-year deal with NBC (1996–2000), Fox paid $115 million while NBC only paid $80 million per year. Fox paid about $575 million overall while NBC paid about $400 million overall. The difference between the Fox and the NBC contracts implicitly values Fox's Saturday Game of the Week at less than $90 million for five years. Before NBC officially decided to part ways with Major League Baseball (for the second time in about 12 years) on September 26, 2000, Fox's payment would've been $345 million while NBC would've paid $240 million. Before 1990, NBC had carried Major League Baseball since 1947.
We have notified Major League Baseball that we have passed on their offer and we wish them well going forward.
— NBC Sports president Ken Schanzer
ESPN and
In 2002, Major League Baseball launched
Fox, Fox Sports 1, TBS, and ESPN era: 2007–2016
- Up to 80 regular-season telecasts per year;
- No blackout restrictions on exclusive Sunday Night Baseball; Monday Night Baseball, with ESPN mostly coexisting with local carriers
- Up to five appearances per team per year on the exclusive Sunday Night Baseball series, up from 11 over three years;
- Daily Baseball Tonight programs – one of ESPN's most popular series—including the continued right to show in-progress highlights and live cut-ins;
- MLB Home Run Derby, ESPN's highest-rated program of the summer and one of cable's best, and additional All-Star programming;
- Continuation of season-long Wednesday baseball on ESPN and ESPN2
- A new afternoon batting practice program, generally from the site of ESPN's Monday night telecast;
- For the first time, the 11 p.m. ET SportsCenter presents a nightly Baseball Tonight update featuring in-progress highlights;
- Select games and MLB All-Star events on ESPN2 throughout the season;
- 10 spring training games and MLB Opening Day coverage;
- Telecast rights for ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes and ESPN International;
- Ability to include MLB programming as part of the delivery of the ESPN networks via cable, satellite and other new or developing technologies, such as cell phones and wireless devices;
- Archival footage and game programming and Instant Classic rights for ESPN Classic.
ESPN's Monday and Wednesday telecasts were mostly nonexclusive, meaning the games also can be televised by each club's local broadcasters. Wednesday games were blacked out in the teams' local markets (and anywhere their broadcasters reach), except if they would otherwise go untelevised. Monday games were usually saw ESPN co-exist with local broadcasters. The Sunday games remain on ESPN only.
The sport averages $296 million under the new agreement, a television and a baseball official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a confidentiality agreement in the deal. ESPN paid baseball $273.5 million in 2006, increasing to $293.5 million in each of the following four years, $308.5 million in 2011 and $306 million in each of the final two seasons.
After weeks of speculation and rumors, at the 2006 All-Star Game, Major League Baseball and the Fox Broadcasting Company announced a renewal of their contract through 2013. The contract would continue to give Fox exclusive rights to televise the World Series and the All-Star Game for the duration of the contract. The World Series would begin the Wednesday after the League Championship Series are completed. Fox would also get exclusive rights to televise the American League Championship Series in odd years beginning in 2007, and exclusive rights to televise the National League Championship Series in even years beginning in 2008. Additionally, Fox would have the right to broadcast its regional Saturday Game of the Week package for all 26 weeks (up from 18 under the previous contract).
In 2009, MLB launched its own cable network, MLB Network, which picked up its own game packages. MLB Network games typically air during nights on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, as well as selected weekday afternoon games; these games are blacked out in areas where a local broadcaster is carrying the MLB Network game, with alternate games or programming provided in these markets.
In August 2012, it was announced that ESPN and Major League Baseball had agreed on a new eight-year deal that greatly increased the network's studio and game content across all of its platforms. The deal also increased ESPN's average yearly payment from about $360 million to approximately $700 million.[33] ESPN returned to broadcasting postseason baseball beginning in 2014 with one of two wild-card games each season. The network alternated airing the American League and National League wild-card games each year. It also secured the rights to all potential regular-season tiebreaker games starting in 2014.[34]
In September 2012,
On October 2, 2012, the new deal between Major League Baseball and Fox was officially confirmed.[39][40]
- 12 Saturday afternoon games on Fox (down from 26).[41]
- 40 games on cable outlets (Fox Sports 1; Fox Sports 2; FX or FXX for overflow).
2017-present: Internet streaming comes of age
MLB began streaming games via the internet (outside the MLB.tv platform) during the 2017 season. Twitter announced that it would stream weekly MLB games out-of-market on Fridays, with the first game on April 7 between the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers.[42] On May 18, Facebook followed with their own announcement of MLB games, streaming a Colorado Rockies-Cincinnati Reds game that evening. Twenty games, simulcasted from one of the local rightsholders, would be streamed on the platform during the 2017 season.[43] Facebook opted to stream its games on Fridays, moving Twitter's live game presentations to Tuesdays.[44] MLB later followed with a weekly exclusive game on Facebook for 2018, in addition to continuing its partnership with Twitter for the same season.[45][46]
On November 15, 2018, Fox renewed its rights, which were set to expire in 2022, through 2028. The contract maintains Fox's current coverage structure, but with expanded digital rights, and the commitment to air more games on the Fox broadcast network when the new deal takes effect.[47][48] Fox also committed to airing at least two of its League Championship Series games, as well as any Game 7, on the broadcast network beginning in 2020; it had been criticized for airing only Game 1 of the 2019 American League Championship Series, while placing the rest on Fox Sports 1.[49]
For the 2019 season, MLB scaled back its partnership with Facebook, limiting it to 6 non-exclusive games for the season.[50] It later announced that YouTube would exclusively stream 13 weekly games in the second half of the season.[51] YouTube would later air four games during the truncated 2020 season, before expanding to 21 games in 2021.[52][53]
The
Turner Sports agreed to a seven-year deal to renew its MLB rights from 2022 through 2028; the deal was finalized in September 2020. As part of the new deals, Turner Sports moves its current Sunday afternoon broadcasts to Tuesday nights.[56] Marchand later reported that ESPN would also renew its rights to Major League Baseball in December 2020; the renewal was confirmed on May 13, 2021. The deal removed ESPN's non-exclusive weeknight games from the schedule, but retains Sunday Night Baseball and ESPN's involvement in the Wild Card playoffs.[57]
During the 2021 season, a three game series played between June 18 and June 20 between the Philadelphia Phillies and the San Francisco Giants, whose regional television rights are both held by the NBC Sports Regional Networks, aired nationally on NBC's streaming service Peacock.[58] Later that season, ABC aired its first regular season MLB game since the 1990s, a presentation of ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball between the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs, on August 8.[59]
In March 2022, Apple Inc. announced that it had acquired the exclusive rights to a weekly doubleheader to be branded Friday Night Baseball for its Apple TV+ service.[60] On March 9, Mike Ozanian, staff sports business writer for Forbes, reported that MLB had also reached a deal with NBC to stream the Monday and Wednesday night games on Peacock, however this would later be revised to Sunday afternoon games.[61] The Wall Street Journal would later report that MLB and Peacock were finalizing a deal to air games on Sunday afternoons; as part of the reported agreement, the first game on the service would be simulcast on NBC, which would be its first MLB game broadcast since 2000.[62] On April 6, NBC Sports confirmed that they had acquired a package of Sunday afternoon games to begin May 8, the initial game of which would be also simulcast on the NBC network. The deal would give Peacock an exclusive window of games on Sundays, starting before 1:30 PM Eastern time.[63] MLB later reached a deal with YouTube, reducing its game inventory to 15 games for 2022.[64] This would be the last year MLB games would appear on YouTube, as the website did not broadcast any MLB games in 2023. MLB Sunday Leadoff on Peacock continued into 2023, but the deal expired at the end of the season and was not renewed before the start of the 2024 season.
Regional broadcasters
Major League Baseball games not broadcast exclusively by its national media partners are televised by local broadcast stations and
Certain national regular season telecasts on ESPN, FS1, and TBS, as well as all MLB Network regular season telecasts, are non-exclusive, and may also air in tandem with telecasts of the game by local broadcasters. However, national telecasts of these games may be blacked out in the participating teams' markets to protect the local broadcaster.
See also
- MLB Network
- MLB.tv
- List of current Major League Baseball broadcasters
- Historical Major League Baseball television broadcasters
- Major League Baseball on regional sports networks
- Major League Baseball on superstations
- The USA Thursday Game of the Week
- ESPN Major League Baseball
- Major League Baseball on Fox
- Major League Baseball on TBS
Sources
- Summer 1997: 75 Years of National Baseball Broadcasts
- Museum TV - SPORTS AND TELEVISION
- Baseball History 1930 to 1939
- Baseball History 1940 to 1949
- Baseball History 1950 to 1959
- Baseball History 1960 to 1969
- Baseball History 1970 to 1979
- Baseball History 1980 to 1989
- Baseball History 1990 to 1999
- Voices of The Game - MLBlog home of baseball author/historian and former presidential speechwriter Curt Smith
- Economic Values of Professional Sport Franchises in the United States
- All-Star Game - TV Analysis & Ratings
- World Series - TV Analysis & Ratings
- MLB TV/Radio History to Year 2000
- Going Inside MLB’s latest $3 billion TV agreements
- SEARCHABLE NETWORK TV BROADCASTS
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