Television coverage
This was the first season of The Baseball Network, the joint venture between MLB, ABC, and NBC. Meanwhile, ESPN renewed its contract for Sunday Night Baseball and Wednesday Night Baseball .
Under The Baseball Network's original plan, the All-Star Game would alternate between NBC in even-numbered years and ABC in odd-numbered years. After the All-Star Game was complete, [31] ABC took over coverage with what was to be their weekly slate of games under the Baseball Night in America banner. [32] ABC was scheduled to televise six [33] regular season games on Saturdays [34] or Mondays [35] in prime time. NBC [36] [37] would then pick up where ABC left off by televising six more regular season Friday night [38] [39] [40] games. Every Baseball Night in America game was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Eastern Time (or 8 p.m. Pacific Time if the game occurred on the West Coast [41] ). 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 (such as ESPN or superstations like Chicago's WGN-TV [42] or Atlanta's WTBS) or over-the-air [43] broadcaster was allowed [44] to telecast a Major League Baseball game on those dates. Baseball Night in America [45] (which premiered [46] on July 16, 1994) usually aired up to fourteen games [47] based on the viewers' region (affiliates chose games of local interest to carry) as opposed to a traditional coast-to-coast format. [48] 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.
Postseason coverage would have also alternated between the two networks. 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 [49] and newly created Division Series. [50] [51]
When the player's strike began on August 12, ABC had only aired games on four of its six scheduled dates, [52] [53] while NBC's slate was supposed to begin on August 26. [54] [55] [56]
This page is based on this
Wikipedia article Text is available under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
