Baseball and TV
Jack Littleton
this year, and it sounds absolutely terrible. Network coverage is being
supplied by NBC and ABC, which have a combined staggering total of
broadcasting a whole 12 games during the SECOND half of the season. I
believe this means no national games during the first half.
In addition to this, because of ratings concerns, no local television
coverage (for the Giants this would be KTVU, KICU (?) and SportsChannel)
will NOT be allowed on the nights the networks do manage to squeeze in a game
between the third showing of such television epics like Rosanne and Matlock.
I have two problems with this: The first is that national television
baseball broadcasts seem to be east-coast centric, which means that many more
east coast games will be shown than west coast games. So if a Yankees-
Orioles game is being shown on national TV, all local coverage is blacked
out. The Yankees-Orioles game will start around 4:30 PT, and should finish
around 7:30 PT, just about the time a home Giants game would start, but we
wouldn't get to see it, so we can make the networks happy by watching THEIR
game (smacks of a monopoly).
The other problem is that ALL 12 games are taking place during the last
half (a.k.a. Pennant Race) of the season. So if the Giants and Padres are
in a heated race for first place (HAAAAA! Sorry, couldn't help myself), and
the network decides to show, say, the Braves and the Expos, we wouldn't get
to see our local pennant race.
How major league baseball ever agreed to this absolutely amazes me. Is it
just me, or are they TRYING to turn people off of major league baseball?
Is this some sort of commie plot? Being that there aren't any commies left,
that seems unlikely.....
Any comments?
--
Jack Littleton / ja...@netcom.com
PowerPC Debugger Engineer / Apple Computer, Inc.
### This, and all other posts generated by myself, are in no ###
### way meant to be an official view of Apple Computer, Inc. ###
ken emery
Jack Littleton <ja...@netcom.com> wrote:
>I just finished reading some of the 'rules' being used to televise baseball
>this year, and it sounds absolutely terrible. Network coverage is being
>supplied by NBC and ABC, which have a combined staggering total of
>broadcasting a whole 12 games during the SECOND half of the season. I
>believe this means no national games during the first half.
I have to say that this totally sucks. It seems that CBS
killed the idea of the Game Of The Week (remember in the 1980's
waking up every Saturday to Vin and Joe?) and the baseball owners
seem to think it was all right.
>In addition to this, because of ratings concerns, no local television
>coverage (for the Giants this would be KTVU, KICU (?) and SportsChannel)
>will NOT be allowed on the nights the networks do manage to squeeze in a game
>between the third showing of such television epics like Rosanne and Matlock.
This is something I have always wondered why CBS didn't have this
done. Remember that the national networks are paying a very hugh
chunk of money for a very few games. So I can't see any reason why
they would not ask for this to be done (this does not mean I like
it). Also they usually have more than one game as a possibility
so if the Giants and Yankees are in a pennant race they could show
both games.
>I have two problems with this: The first is that national television
>baseball broadcasts seem to be east-coast centric, which means that many more
>east coast games will be shown than west coast games. So if a Yankees-
>Orioles game is being shown on national TV, all local coverage is blacked
>out. The Yankees-Orioles game will start around 4:30 PT, and should finish
>around 7:30 PT, just about the time a home Giants game would start, but we
>wouldn't get to see it, so we can make the networks happy by watching THEIR
>game (smacks of a monopoly).
This is only because about 2/3 of the teams are east of the
Mississippi. Therefore most of the games will be from back east
(kind of makes sense).
>The other problem is that ALL 12 games are taking place during the last
>half (a.k.a. Pennant Race) of the season. So if the Giants and Padres are
>in a heated race for first place (HAAAAA! Sorry, couldn't help myself), and
>the network decides to show, say, the Braves and the Expos, we wouldn't get
>to see our local pennant race.
Not having any national broadcasts before the All-Star break is
really hideous. I don't see how the owners let themselves get talked
into this. Btw ESPN will be showing games on two or three
days a week all season (sundays are one of the days).
As I said above I do not think this would be true. The networks
almost never have only one game available to be shown just in case
of rain... There are usually two announcing crews so one could be
at the Giants game and the other at the Braves (as per your example
above).
>How major league baseball ever agreed to this absolutely amazes me. Is it
>just me, or are they TRYING to turn people off of major league baseball?
>Is this some sort of commie plot? Being that there aren't any commies left,
>that seems unlikely.....
Pretty simple really, this is how the could extract the most money
from the networks. It was a bit of give and take really. The blackout
used to be in effect for Saturday Game Of The Week's until CBS took
over the baseball TV contract.
>Any comments?
>Jack Littleton / ja...@netcom.com
>PowerPC Debugger Engineer / Apple Computer, Inc.
bye,
ken emery