The Baseball Network

[Mets82]

I just wanted to ask if anyone remembers the debacle known as The Baseball Network. Now I'm 26 yrs. old so I don't remember too much about it. I do remember why I was turned off by it was because they regionalized the playoffs. How dumb do you have to be to do that? People look forward to the playoffs and they regionalize them. Imagine if your a Yankees fan and all you could get is the Red Sox playoff game. I think you would be able to see it but I think it was on tape delay or something. The Baseball Network- A bad concept and a bad idea.
It's a shame because they had some good announce teams and it all went down the drain.

[SabresRule]

All I have to say:

Thank GOD it lasted just a year!

A lot of us rip FOX for how they cover baseball and their faults, but at least they avoided something like 'regionalizing the playoffs.'

Wait a second- didn't the NHL regionalize playoff coverage in rounds 1 and 2 when they were on FOX and ABC?

[Mets82]

I don't even know. Doesn't the NHL regionalize the playoffs now?

[anders5189]

Not to defend The Baseball Network too much because it probably was a dumb idea, but you have to remember how things were at the time. CBS lost a fortune with its coverage of MLB, and other networks were reluctant to pay big money for baseball. Then the strike in 94 wiped out the entire postseason, which cost ABC and NBC millions. When baseball came back in 95 it was much less popular because so many people were still pissed over the strike. Given all that, you can see why the ABC and NBC went to the regional coverage. Virtually no games at that time could have attracted a large national audience, and they didn't want to get burned like CBS did.

The experiment ended in 96 when FOX stepped up and snagged the MLB rights because they were trying to become a real network. NBC stayed on board too, but without having to show any crappy regular season games, and NBC's coverage in the late 90's was generally terrible and nothing like it had been in the past.

[jmg007]

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The Baseball Network had no day baseball coverage on the weekends nor any telecasts during the first half.

During its two years of existence, the Baseball Network started its coverage at the all star game followed by 12 prime time telecasts with Six Saturday night telecasts by ABC followed by Six Friday night telecasts on NBC.

Most of the announcers were local for the exception of two network teams. For example, ABC's two teams were Al Michaels, Tim McCarver, and Jim Pamer along with Brent Musburger and Jim Kaat. NBC had Bob Costas, Joe Morgan, Greg Gumbel and Bob Uecker.

The Strike basically killed this two year experiment that was probably doomed from the beginning.

[Mets82]

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Do you think that we will ever have that again? I mean do you think ABC and NBC will ever share the World Series? Do you think FOX will ever lose the World Series?