The Baseball Network


The Baseball Network was an American television broadcasting joint venture between ABC, NBC and Major League Baseball. Under the arrangement, beginning in the 1994 season, MLB produced its own broadcasts in-house which were then brokered to air on ABC and NBC. The Baseball Network was the first television network in the United States to be owned by a professional sports league.
The package included coverage of games in prime time on selected nights throughout the regular season, along with coverage of the postseason and the World Series. Unlike previous broadcasting arrangements with the league, there was no national "game of the week" during the regular season; these would be replaced by multiple weekly regional telecasts on certain nights of the week. Additionally, The Baseball Network had exclusive coverage windows; no other broadcaster could televise MLB games during the same night that The Baseball Network was televising games.
The arrangement did not last long; due to the effects of a players' strike on the remainder of the 1994 season, and poor reception from fans and critics over how the coverage was implemented, The Baseball Network was disbanded after the 1995 season. While NBC would maintain rights to certain games, the growing Fox network became the league's new national broadcast partner beginning in 1996.

Background

After the fallout from CBS's financial problems from their exclusive, four-year-long, US$1.8 billion television contract with Major League Baseball, Major League Baseball decided to go into the business of producing the telecasts themselves and market these to advertisers on its own. In reaction to the failed trial with CBS, Major League Baseball was desperately grasping for every available dollar. To put things into proper perspective, in 1991, the second year of Major League Baseball's contract with CBS, CBS reported a loss of around $169 million in the third quarter of the year. A decline in advertiser interest caused revenue from the sale of commercials during CBS's baseball telecasts to plummet. All the while, CBS was still contractually obligated to pay Major League Baseball around $260 million a year through 1993. Before Major League Baseball decided to seek the services of other networks, CBS offered US$120 million in annual rights fees over a two-year period, as well as advertising revenues in excess of $150 million a season.
As part of MLB's attempt to produce and market the games in-house, it hoped to provide games of regional interests to appropriate markets. Major League Baseball in the process, hoped to offer important games for divisional races to the overall market. Owners also hoped that this particular technique, combined with the additional division races created through league expansion and the quest for wild card spots for the playoffs would increase the national broadcast revenue for Major League Baseball in the foreseeable future. On May 28, 1993, Major League Baseball's owners overwhelmingly approved a new network television deal without CBS involved.
After a four-year hiatus, ABC and NBC returned to Major League Baseball under the umbrella of a revenue sharing venture called The Baseball Network. Under a six-year plan, Major League Baseball was intended to receive 85% of the first US$140 million in advertising revenue, 50% of the next $30 million, and 80% of any additional money. Prior to this, Major League Baseball was projected to take a projected 55% cut in rights fees and receive a typical rights fee from the networks. When compared to the previous television deal with CBS, The Baseball Network was supposed to bring in 50% less of the broadcasting revenue. The advertisers were reportedly excited about the arrangement with The Baseball Network because the new package included several changes intended to boost ratings, especially among younger viewers.
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 games. The deal was similar to a time-buy, instead of a traditional rights fee situation. It also stood to benefit the networks because they reduced the risk associated with purchasing the broadcast rights outright. NBC and ABC were to create a loss-free environment for each other and keep an emerging Fox, which had recently made an aggressive and ultimately successful $1.58 billion bid for the television rights for National Football Conference games, at bay. As a result of Fox's NFL gain, CBS was weakened further by affiliate changes, as a number of stations jumped to Fox from CBS.
Key figures involved in the creation and production for The Baseball Network:
This wasn't the first time that Major League Baseball considered creating its very own television network. Back in 1988, then commissioner Peter Ueberroth contemplated creating an all-baseball basic cable channel that would show as many as four games each night. Ueberroth wanted to set up a national cable package for one or two nights a week without undercutting the value of some teams' local television deals. This of course, would soon happen when Major League Baseball signed a deal to broadcast games on ESPN, but prior to this, Ueberroth envisioned the owners pooling games already being shown on regional pay-television services. Viewers would see the telecast of the team in their market if a game was scheduled; otherwise, they would be sent games of regional or divisional interest. Eventually, baseball could have also shared the channel with the NHL or NBA in the off-season. It wasn't until January 1, 2009 that an all-baseball cable channel, MLB Network would finally come to fruition and would prove to be much more successful than the ill-fated Baseball Network.

Coverage

The Baseball Network kicked off its coverage on July 12, 1994, on NBC with the All-Star Game from Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. This was NBC's first telecast of a Major League Baseball game since Game 5 of the 1989 National League Championship Series between the San Francisco Giants and Chicago Cubs on October 9 of that year. The NBC broadcast team consisted of Bob Costas on play-by-play, with Joe Morgan and Bob Uecker as analysts. Costas, a veteran presence at NBC, had been NBC's secondary baseball play-by-play announcer behind Vin Scully during the 1980s. Morgan, who was also working for ESPN at the time, had spent two years at NBC in the mid-1980s and two years at ABC from 1988 to 1989. Uecker, the longtime voice of the Milwaukee Brewers, returned to national television for the first time since he worked for ABC in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Greg Gumbel hosted the pre game show; this was one of his first assignments for NBC after having left CBS Sports following that network's coverage of the 1994 College World Series. Gumbel had also previously served as the secondary play-by-play announcer for CBS's baseball coverage, calling the 1993 American League Championship Series along the way with Jim Kaat. Helping with interviews were Hannah Storm and Johnny Bench. The 1994 All-Star Game reportedly sold out all its advertising slots. This was considered an impressive financial accomplishment, given that one 30-second spot cost US$300,000.
NBC station WEEK-TV in Peoria, Illinois suffered significant transmitter difficulties throughout most of the 1994 All-Star Game telecast, knocking its signal off the air until one hour after the game's conclusion. The station would later air an abbreviated version of the game the following weekend due to its transmitter problems during the live NBC broadcast.
ABC, meanwhile, was able to have its primary broadcast team from 1989 return intact. Al Michaels served as the play-by-play announcer once again. Tim McCarver, who had just spent four years at CBS, returned as an analyst along with Jim Palmer. On the subject of Michaels returning to baseball for the first time since the Loma Prieta earthquake interrupted the 1989 World Series, Jim Palmer said, "Here Al is, having done five games since 1989, and steps right in. It's hard to comprehend how one guy could so amaze."

''Baseball Night in America''

After the All-Star Game was complete, ABC took over coverage with what was to be their weekly slate of games. ABC was scheduled to televise six regular season games on Saturdays or Mondays in prime time. NBC would then pick up where ABC left off by televising six more regular season Friday night games. Every Baseball Night in America game was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. A single starting time gave the networks the opportunity to broadcast one game and then, simultaneously, cut to another game when there was a break in action.
The networks had exclusive rights for the twelve regular season dates, in that no regional or national cable service or over-the-air broadcaster was allowed to telecast a Major League Baseball game on those dates. Baseball Night in America usually aired up to fourteen games based on the viewers' region as opposed to a traditional coast-to-coast format. Normally, announcers who represented each of the teams playing in the respective games were paired with each other. More specifically, on regional Saturday night broadcasts and all non-"national" broadcasts, TBN let the two lead announcers from the opposing teams call the games involving their teams together.
Games involving either of the two Canadian-based MLB teams at the time, the Toronto Blue Jays and Montreal Expos, were not always included in the Baseball Night in America package. Canadian rightsholders were allowed to broadcast the games. When TSN covered the games in Canada, they re-broadcast the BNIA feed across their network. Typically, if the Blue Jays were idle for the day, the Expos would be featured on TSN. Also, CBET would air Blue Jays games if the Detroit Tigers were not playing at home that night or if the Blue Jays were scheduled to play in Detroit. Whether or not the game would air in the opposing team's market would depend on which time zone they were from, or if they shared a market with another team.
All of the 1994 games aired on ABC; due to the strike NBC was unable to air its slate of games, which were supposed to begin on August 26.