| Thursday Night Baseball | |
|---|---|
 Logo | |
| Also known as | USA Network Thursday Night Baseball ABC's Thursday Night Baseball ESPN Thursday Night Baseball Baseball Night in America |
| Genre | Sport |
| Developed by | USA Sports ABC Sports Fox Sports ESPN |
| Starring | John Smoltz Ken Rosenthal Kevin Burkhardt Adam Amin Joe Davis A. J. Pierzynski Eric Karros |
| Theme music composer | NJJ Music Scott Schreer |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 180 minutes (or until game ends) |
| Original release | |
| Network | USA Network ABC Fox Sports Net Fox Family ESPN/ESPN2 |
USA Network was the first network to consistently airMajor League Baseball games on Thursday night withUSA Network Thursday Night Baseball from 1979 to 1983. Thursday night baseball games returned in 1989 with the move ofABC's games in the networks' final season of coverage until 2020.
ESPN has aired games on Thursday nights since 2003. ESPN aired weekly Thursday Night games from 2003 to 2006 and has aired a limited amount of games, including an exclusiveOpening Day game since 2017, after 2006.
Fox Sports has aired games on Thursday nights in two different iterations. First from 1997 to 2001 onFox Sports Network andFox Family, and since 2014 onFox Sports 1 andFox. Fox has aired a limited amount ofBaseball Night in America games on Thursday nights since 2019.
From 1979 to 1983, theUSA Network broadcast Major League Baseball games on Thursday nights.
The series began April 26, 1979 with adoubleheader:Cleveland atKansas City[1] (Jim Woods/Bud Harrelson) followed byBaltimore atCalifornia[2] (Monte Moore/Maury Wills). The second game of the night was typically, based out of theWest Coast. The games were usuallyblacked out of the competing teams' cities. Once in a while, when USA did a repeat of the telecast late at night, local cities were allowed to show the rerun.
From 1980 to 1981, Woods andNelson Briles (replacing Harrelson) did the early games (except for a game atMontreal on October 2, 1980, which reunited Woods with onetimeBoston Red Sox radio partnerNed Martin), while Moore andWes Parker (replacing Wills) called the late game.
In 1982,doubleheaders did not start until June 17. Prior to the doubleheaders starting, Moore and Parker did the individual game until then. When the doubleheaders finally began, Moore and Parker moved over to the late game for the rest of the year. Meanwhile,Eddie Doucette (replacing Jim Woods) and Nelson Briles were assigned to call the early game.
USA continued with the plan of not starting doubleheaders until June in the final year of the package in 1983. Steve Zabriskie andAl Albert filled in for Eddie Doucette in September 1982 (Steve Grad also occasionally substituted) while Albert replaced Doucette for a game or more in 1983.
In 1989, theABC network aired Thursday night Major League Baseball games after having broadcastMonday Night Baseball (and occasional Sunday afternoon games) since 1976.[3][4][5][6][7][8][9] This was ABC's final year of consecutive baseball coverage (alongsideNBC, which had telecastSaturday afternoon games since 1966 and Major League Baseball in general since 1947) due toCBS signing a four-year contract (spanning from 1990 to 1993) to become the exclusive national broadcast network provider for Major League Baseball games.
Al Michaels,Jim Palmer, andTim McCarver formed ABC's lead broadcast team, whileGary Thorne andJoe Morgan were the second team.
In 1997, as part of the contract with Major League Baseball it had signed the year before,Fox Sports gained an additional outlet for its coverage. Its recently launched network of cableregional sports networks,Fox Sports Net, was given rights to two Thursday night games per week, one for the Eastern and Central time zones and one for the Mountain and Pacific time zones.
In 2000, as part of an exclusive contract Fox signed with MLB, that coverage passed toFox Family Channel and was reduced to one game per week. After the 2000 season, Fox also gained rights to the entire postseason and moved a large portion of its Division Series coverage to Fox Family. This lasted for one season due toThe Walt Disney Company acquiring Fox Family. As part of the transaction, Fox Family was renamedABC Family andESPN gained the rights to Fox Family and FX's MLB coverage, although the 2002 Division Series aired on ABC Family due to contractual issues, but with ESPN production, a sign of things to come atABC Sports. Control of the overall contract remained with Fox, meaning they could renegotiate following the 2006 season and not allow ESPN to retain its postseason coverage. For the 2007 season, Fox did exactly that, andTBS became the other home of the postseason as part of itsnew baseball contract.
Play-by-play announcers for the FSN/Fox Family coverage includedKenny Albert,Thom Brennaman,Chip Caray,Josh Lewin, andSteve Physioc. Color analysts includedBob Brenly,Kevin Kennedy,Steve Lyons, andJeff Torborg. Occasionally, FSN wouldsimulcast a local-team feed of a game from one of its affiliated RSNs in lieu of a dedicated national production.
ESPN Thursday Night Baseball aired on eitherESPN orESPN2 from 2003 to 2006 and featured one game per week, taking over the package that had been on Fox Family Channel.Castrol served as the presenting sponsor for the telecasts.
The play-by-play commentator wasChris Berman along with eitherJoe Morgan orEric Karros as color commentator. In 2006,Duke Castiglione joined the broadcast as the field reporter.
ESPN Thursday Night Baseball ended after the 2006 season because the broadcast rights to the package were lost toTBS. TBS began a package of Sunday afternoon games as a replacement for ESPN's Thursday night games.[10] That package was moved to Tuesday nights in 2022.
Even thoughThursday Night Baseball as a distinct package ended after the 2006 season, ESPN has still aired select games on Thursday nights, most notably every year since 2017, when Opening Day of the MLB season was moved to Thursdays, as an evening game on Opening Day remains part of ESPN's baseball contract.[11][12]
For the2019 season,Fox Sports announced that they would air games on two Thursday nights in September.[13] These games were branded as part of Fox'sBaseball Night in America package. Four Thursday night games were aired on Fox in a regionalized form, with two each week. The primary games were called byJoe Davis,John Smoltz, andKen Rosenthal, while the secondary games were called byKenny Albert,A. J. Pierzynski, andJon Morosi in 2019.
With the2020 season being abbreviated to just 60 games due to theCOVID-19 pandemic, Fox announced that they would broadcast at least four games on Thursday nights beginning on July 30[14] and continuing through the month of August. Fox aired three weeks of Thursday night games in 2020, with July 30 and August 6 being regionalized, while August 13 was broadcast to the whole country. Fox was supposed to air another week of regional games on August 27, but they were postponed in the wake of player protest after the police shooting ofJacob Blake inKenosha, Wisconsin, and instead those games got rescheduled to Saturday.
For the2021 season, Fox only aired one Thursday night game. The "Field of Dreams Game" between theNew York Yankees and theChicago White Sox.[15]
Fox returned to regionalized games in the2022 season. Fox aired three weeks of Thursday night games, including the secondField of Dreams game on August 11. Fox again also aired two weeks of Thursday night games in September in order to allow more Saturday primetimeCollege Football games to air on the network.
Since the2023 season, Fox has aired at least three weeks of Thursday night games. At least one game is aired in late August and two games are broadcast in September.[16][17] In2024, Fox also aired theMLB at Rickwood Field game on a Thursday night in June.[18]
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