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Fox, TBS ink deal to air MLB games (most playoff games will move to cable, TBS drops Braves)
Houston Chronicle ^ | 7/11/06 | DAVID BARRON

Posted on 07/12/2006 7:50:49 AM PDT by Diddle E. Squat

Fox Sports and Turner Sports agreed Tuesday to seven-year contracts with Major League Baseball that will keep the World Series, All-Star Game and Saturday Game of the Week on Fox while moving the entire Division Series to cable and adding a Sunday afternoon Game of the Week on TBS beginning in 2008.

Fox will pay about $250 million a year or $1.75 billion for the seven-year agreement, down from about $417 million per year under a deal that expires after the 2006 season. That figure included about $100 million a year for regular-season and Division Series rights Fox sublicensed to ESPN.

No figures were immediately available for the Turner Sports agreement. ESPN last year signed an eight-year, $2.36 billion deal to air about 80 regular-season games a year, most of them on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday nights.

In addition to the World Series, All-Star Game and Saturday games, Fox will air one League Championship Series each year.

The other LCS is up for grabs among Fox, Turner and ESPN, and will most likely land on one of the cable networks.

"This is a great deal for Fox, since our rights fees are significantly less," said Fox Sports president Ed Goren. "But it's also a great deal for baseball. ... They were able to see significant interest on the cable side so they can meet their financial goals."

Saturday games expanding

For devoted seamheads, the biggest new element of the Fox deal is the expansion of the Saturday Game of the Week to 26 weekends, up from the current 18.

"We have a lot of purists here who always felt a little funny coming on in May (with the Saturday games)," Goren said.

Fox will continue to have regional games on Saturdays but will have a single window most weekends at 3 p.m. rather than windows for the Eastern and Pacific time zones.

That will allow the network to air two or three regional games rather than the current three or four.

Fox also was able to keep the World Series, All-Star Game and one LCS (the American League in odd-numbered years beginning in 2007 and the National League in even-numbered years) while dumping the Division Series, which ate into Nielsen ratings for its dominant prime-time lineup.

The bottom line, though, was the bottom line: Fox got the games it wanted and will pay less money.

"Our marching orders over the last 14 months is that every deal we sign, we have to go in believing that they will be profitable," Goren said. "Sometimes, that requires a longer negotiating process (12 to 14 months for the MLB deal)."

Turner Sports, meanwhile, continues a relationship with MLB that began with Ted Turner's audacious SuperStation venture with the Atlanta Braves in the mid-1970s.

'Landmark deal'

TBS will air any and all MLB tiebreaker games this season, and next season through 2013 it will air all Division Series games. Unlike the current agreement with ESPN, TBS will not be required to syndicate the games to over-the-air stations in the competing markets. If there are time conflicts, some Division Series games could air on TNT.

Beginning in 2008, TBS will air up to 26 Sunday afternoon games that will be blacked out in the competing teams' markets. TBS will air an alternate game in those markets. It will no longer air Braves games nationwide, other than as part of the Sunday afternoon package, after the 2007 season.

"It's a truly landmark deal for Turner," said David Levy, president of Turner Sports. "We know baseball, and we know our viewer profile, and know that our viewers want to see baseball on Sunday afternoons. For us to get appointment for each Sunday leading up to the playoffs and to have the Division Series was not something we could pass up."

ESPN spokeswoman Diane Lamb said the network negotiated with MLB regarding the Division Series but added, "We couldn't agree on the value provided for the additional week of programming."

Lamb said ESPN was talking with MLB about the remaining LCS package, adding, "We're interested in deals that provide good value."

Goren said he did not expect Fox to acquire the second LCS package other than in partnership with a cable network.

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said there was an "enormous amount of interest" in the remaining LCS package.


TOPICS: Sports
KEYWORDS:
So all the playoff games except for one of the two League Championship Series and the World Series shifts to cable.

Also announced was that the World Series will begin on a Tuesday instead of a weekend. To accomodate this, they are looking at shortening the regular season and ending it a week earlier.

1 posted on 07/12/2006 7:50:52 AM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
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To: Diddle E. Squat

StereoidBall is boring :)


2 posted on 07/12/2006 7:51:36 AM PDT by soccer_maniac (Fine employers $100,000 for every illegal employee they hire-> millions of illegals will self-deport)
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To: Diddle E. Squat

To be clear, TBS will drop the national broadcast of Braves games, but will still broadcast 45 games a year in the Atlanta market.


3 posted on 07/12/2006 7:52:09 AM PDT by Diddle E. Squat
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To: Diddle E. Squat
While this is an extremely good business move for TBS, it is also the final dagger to the heart for the Braves from Time-Warner.

First they sell the team to Liberty Media, who has no interest in raising the Braves salary limits, and now they remove the Braves national TV presense.

The result, the Braves go from one of baseballs elite, to a small market team with minimal national exposure fighting for local TV scraps.

4 posted on 07/12/2006 7:57:45 AM PDT by commish (Freedom tastes sweetest to those who have fought to protect it.)
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To: Diddle E. Squat

I've never understood blackouts and broadcast rights completely. I live an hour north of Kansas City and have DishNetwork, and our Fox Sports Net is a St. Louis Cardinals channel. So whenever there is a Cardinals game on, the channel is blacked out. I presume it is because I am outside of the St. Louis viewing area. No problem.

But whenever a Cardinals game is on ESPN or ESPN2, it gets blacked out - presumably because they say I am within the St. Louis umbrella.

I don't feel so bad, though - I understand that most of the state Iowa has games blacked out when it includes the Cubs, White Sox, Twins, Royals, Cardinals, and Brewers.


5 posted on 07/12/2006 7:58:44 AM PDT by RabidBartender (an ex-fan of the Dixie Chicks)
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To: Diddle E. Squat
To be clear, TBS will drop the national broadcast of Braves games, but will still broadcast 45 games a year in the Atlanta market.

Dang! No mo' Bravos...no mo' seein' Chuppuh, Smoltzee and Andruw fold up like a cheap suitcase come September playoffs. No mo' seein' Bobby Cocks get tossed by an ump for cryin' when Marcus Giles throws late to first and the runner beats his attempt by three steps. No mo' seein' the ridiculous tomahawk chop or hearin' the ridiculous calls by Skip and Joe. No mo' seein' Francouer strike out with the bases full of Bravos, or seein' the bullpen blow a 10-run lead... Just Dang!

6 posted on 07/12/2006 8:00:27 AM PDT by meandog (If I were to draw the odious Islamic prophet Muhammad, he would have horns, a tail, and a pitchfork!)
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To: Diddle E. Squat
****Also announced was that the World Series will begin on a Tuesday instead of a weekend. To accomodate this, they are looking at shortening the regular season and ending it a week earlier.****

So MLB is thinking about going Retro, interesting.

As I recall from my 'yute' (before UHF & color TV) the season was 156 games and the WS did start on a Tuesday (could be wrong but that's what I recall).

Now, if we could get the AL to do something about the DH ...... :-)

7 posted on 07/12/2006 8:06:39 AM PDT by Condor51 (Better to fight for something than live for nothing - Gen. George S. Patton)
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To: Diddle E. Squat

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I grew up watching the Braves lose behind Dale Murphy's bat. I remember when TBS decided to show the "Goodwill Games" and we missed Bob Horner's 4 homer game. The Braves still lost that game, making the only time in history a player hit 4 home runs for a team that lost the game.

Sigh.


8 posted on 07/12/2006 7:58:39 PM PDT by MikeD (We live in a world where babies are like velveteen rabbits that only become real if they are loved.)
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To: meandog
Dang! No mo' Bravos...no mo' seein' Chuppuh, Smoltzee and Andruw fold up like a cheap suitcase come September playoffs. No mo' seein' Bobby Cocks get tossed by an ump for cryin' when Marcus Giles throws late to first and the runner beats his attempt by three steps. No mo' seein' the ridiculous tomahawk chop or hearin' the ridiculous calls by Skip and Joe. No mo' seein' Francouer strike out with the bases full of Bravos, or seein' the bullpen blow a 10-run lead... Just Dang!

So, how did the second game of that double header turn out?

9 posted on 07/13/2006 12:14:50 AM PDT by NoCurrentFreeperByThatName
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To: NoCurrentFreeperByThatName
So, how did the second game of that double header turn out?

The Braves give new meaning to the term "Wait 'til next year"!

10 posted on 07/13/2006 7:57:02 AM PDT by meandog (If I were to draw the odious Islamic prophet Muhammad, he would have horns, a tail, and a pitchfork!)
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To: Diddle E. Squat

This really stinks for people with HDTV. TNT has HDTV, but TBS is just standard def.

This really makes me mad.


11 posted on 10/17/2006 4:05:47 PM PDT by MediaMole (9/11 - We have already forgotten.)
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