| ESPN Major League Baseball | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Starring | Various personalities (seebelow) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Running time | 3 hours |
| Original release | |
| Network | ESPN |
| Release | April 9, 1990 (1990-04-09) – present |
ESPN Major League Baseball (also referred to asMLB on ESPN) is an American presentation of liveMajor League Baseball (MLB) games produced byESPN. ESPN's MLB broadcasts have also aired on sister networks and platformsESPN2,ABC andESPN+.
ESPN's MLB coverage debuted on April 9, 1990 with threeOpening Day telecasts. ESPN has held the exclusive national broadcast rights toSunday Night Baseball since 1990. The network also airs the defendingworld champions game onOpening Day. In addition to regular-season games, ESPN also airs severalspring training games per year, theAll-Star Legends and Celebrity Softball Game (until 2021) andHome Run Derby played the week of theAll-Star Game. In 2014, ESPN returned to broadcasting theMajor League Baseball postseason, and has held the exclusive rights to the entireWild Card Series since 2022.
ESPN also airs a weekly highlight show calledBaseball Tonight at 6 p.m.ET on Sundays as a lead-in toSunday Night Baseball; previously it was a daily program until 2017, when layoffs cut back the show's airing to Sundays.
In ESPN's most recent contract extension signed in 2021,ESPN Major League Baseball was originally to remain on the air through the 2028 season,[1] but both ESPN and MLB exercised a mutual opt-out on February 20, 2025, to end the agreement following the 2025 season.[2]
ESPN Radio has also been airing Major League Baseball since1998 (succeedingCBS Radio), broadcastingSunday Night Baseball as well as select other regular-season games, theAll-Star Game andHome Run Derby, and the entire postseason including theWild Card Game,Division Series,League Championship Series, andWorld Series.
Since ESPN first received MLB telecast rights, it has become traditional for ESPN to make an effort to cover live historic moments in the sport. For example, in2007, ESPN and ESPN2 added several telecasts whenBarry Bonds chasedHank Aaron's record for most home runs in an MLB career. ESPN had the national telecasts on August 4 when Bonds tied Aaron with number 755 and on August 7, 2007 when he hit number 756. ESPN was also the broadcaster of the final game at the originalYankee Stadium as a part ofSunday Night Baseball withJon Miller and Hall of FamerJoe Morgan. It also showedChris Burke's 18th-inning walk-off homer to end the2005 NLDS series in favor of theHouston Astros against theAtlanta Braves. TheSt. Louis Cardinals swept theSan Diego Padres in the other NLDS Series.
Also, ESPN has been given permission to interrupt regular programming, when allowed, to show attempts at new records or significant milestones live. Examples include three cut-ins from its coverage of the firstX Games in 1995 untilEddie Murray recorded his 3000th hit, live coverage ofSammy Sosa's 600th home run in 2007, and a number of no-hitters, including the Buchholz feat mentioned earlier. Although it cannot show any historic attempts live during theFox orTBS exclusive windows, it was allowed to show an in-progress highlight ofAlex Rodriguez's 500th career home run in August 2007, as this was on a Saturday afternoon before Fox went on the air with its game coverage.
On January 5, 1989,Major League Baseball signed a$400 million deal withESPN, who would show over 175 games beginning in1990. For the next four years, ESPN would televise six games a week (Sunday Night Baseball,Wednesday Night Baseball anddoubleheaders on Tuesdays and Fridays), as well as multiple games onOpening Day,Memorial Day,Independence Day, andLabor Day.
On April 15, 1990, ESPN'sSunday Night Baseball debuted with the experiencedplay-by-play announcerJon Miller joining retiredHall of Fame playerJoe Morgan in the broadcast booth. In its first year,Sunday Night Baseball averaged a 3.0rating. That was double the number that ESPN as a whole was averaging at the time (1.5). By1998, ESPN enjoyed its largest baseball audience ever (a 9.5 Nielsen rating) asMark McGwire hit his 61st home run of the season. When ESPN first broadcastSunday Night Baseball, they would show at least one game from every ballpark. Also, every team was guaranteed an appearance. It was essentially, the television equivalent to a cross country stadium tour.
In1994, ESPN renewed its baseball contract for six years (through the1999 season). The new deal was worth$42.5 million per year and $255 million overall. The deal was ultimately voided after the1995 season and ESPN was pretty much forced to restructure their contract. In1995, ESPN broadcast theAmerican League West tie-breaker game between theSeattle Mariners andCalifornia Angels withJon Miller andJoe Morgan making the call.[3]
In1996, ESPN began a five-year contract[4] with Major League Baseball worth$440 million and about $80 million per year.ESPN paid for the rights to a Wednesday night doubleheader andSunday Night Baseball, as well as Opening Day and holiday telecasts and all postseason games not aired onFox orNBC.[5] Major League Baseball staggered the times of first-round games to provide a full-day feast for viewers: ESPN could air games at 1 p.m., 4 p.m., and 11 p.m.EDT, with the broadcast networks telecasting the prime time game.
In1998, ESPN[6][7] broadcast theNational League Wild Card tie-breaker game between theChicago Cubs andSan Francisco Giants. Like the American League West tie-breaker game in 1995, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan were on the call for ESPN.[8][9]
In1999,NBC'sBob Costas teamed with Joe Morgan to call two weekday night telecasts for ESPN. The first was onWednesday, August 25 withDetroit Tigers playing against theSeattle Mariners.[10] The second was on Tuesday, September 21 with theAtlanta Braves playing against theNew York Mets. Later that year, ESPN[11] broadcast theNational League Wild Card tie-breaker game (this time between theNew York Mets andCincinnati Reds) with Miller and Morgan once again on the call.[12]
ESPN and ESPN2 had contracts (which were signed in2000 and ran through2005) to show selected weeknight andSunday Night Baseball games, along with Opening Day and holiday games and selected Division Series playoff games. The contracts withESPN were worth$141.8 million per year and $851 million overall.
In 2002,Disney boughtFox Family, which had aired Thursday night games and some Division Series games in 2000 and 2001 as part of the Fox Sports television contract. ESPN added those games to its package, shifting the Thursday night games to weekday afternoonDayGame broadcasts. The play-by-play commentators forESPN DayGame wereGary Thorne orJon Sciambi along withSteve Phillips, andSteve Stone as color analysts. However, because of existing contractual obligations, the 2002 Division Series games were required to be broadcast on the renamed ABC Family. Those broadcasts used ESPN announcers, graphics, and music. The following season they aired on ESPN.
On September 14, 2005, ESPN signed an eight-year contract with Major League Baseball that began with the 2006 season, renewing their rights toSunday Night Baseball andWednesday Night Baseball, with the late (10 p.m. ET) Wednesday night game replaced by a regular weeklyMonday Night Baseball telecast instead. The network also dropped special coverage ofMemorial Day,Independence Day, andLabor Day games, though Memorial Day and Labor Day were still included in the Monday night coverage.
WhileSunday Night Baseball remained exclusive, ESPN's Monday and Wednesday telecasts were mostly nonexclusive, meaning the games were also televised by each club's local broadcasters, while ESPN's broadcasts wereblacked out in the participating teams' local markets. Previously, ESPN would carry an alternate telecast (usually a simulcast of another game's local broadcast) for home-team markets which were blacked out, but those were phased out, with ESPNEWS replacing the feed.
On July 25, 2006,Harold Reynolds was fired from ESPN. The ESPN spokeswoman confirmed that Reynolds "is no longer with the network" but did not give a reason for the departure.[13] Reynolds confirmed that an accusation of sexual harassment was the reason for his departure but called it "a total misunderstanding" and that "I gave a woman a hug and I felt like it was misinterpreted."[14] In February 2008, ESPN and Reynolds reached anout-of-court settlement.
Weeks later,Peter Gammons was sidelined with abrain aneurysm. Gammons returned to ESPN in early September.
The weekday afternoonDayGame telecasts continued through the 2006 season as they were still covered under the separate contract inherited from Fox Family. With that contract expiring at the end of the season, the lastDayGame broadcast was on September 30, 2006. The expiration of that contract also ended ESPN's involvement in broadcasting the postseason for the time being, as Fox had actually retained right-of-first-refusal of the postseason part of the contract in the sale, and chose to exercise that right to add more Division Series games. ESPN's last postseason broadcast under the contract was one of the2006 American League Division Series.
ESPN telecasts in2006, posted an average of 1,115,000 household impressions, up 27% when compared to 2005's 875,000. The corresponding 1.2 rating this year marks a 20% increase over the 1.0 average in 2005. ESPN2's baseball telecasts have averaged 704,000 households, an increase of 34% over 2005's 525,000. Ratings on ESPN2 went up 33% (0.8 vs. 0.6).
Because of the reduction of ESPN's weekly schedule to three games, ESPN released numerous commentators from the network, includingJeff Brantley,Tino Martinez,Steve Stone andEric Karros.
On April 1, for the season-opening game between theNew York Mets and theSt. Louis Cardinals, ESPN changed its on-screen graphics to the version that debuted withMonday Night Football in2006 and was later adopted by itsNBA coverage at the start of the2006-07 season. The previous graphics dated back to the advent ofESPN HD in2004.
During the week of theAll-Star Game,Baseball Tonight andSportsCenter did not travel to the game site as it previously had; the 2007 site wasAT&T Park inSan Francisco. The reason was that MLB stripped ESPN of its on-site credentials for its studio crew as punishment for leaking the rosters of the All-Star teams beforeTBS did. TBS' announcement, which was billed as exclusive, was scheduled for 4 p.m.Eastern time but was delayed for nearly two hours, by which point ESPN, in apparent violation of its contract with MLB, went ahead and revealed the rosters anyway. ESPN later agreed to promote playoff coverage on TBS and Fox (alongside its own radio coverage) in return forBaseball Tonight going on the air shortly after each night's games concluded.
ESPN pre-empted part of theKansas State–Auburncollege football game on September 1 to show the end of theno-hitter thrown byBoston Red Sox pitcherClay Buchholz.
ESPN2 showed the season-opening games inTokyo between theBoston Red Sox and theOakland Athletics. Unfortunately, due to atransponder failure, viewers onDirecTV reliant on thestandard-definition feed missed the first of the two games. (ESPNHD was unaffected.)
On March 30, ESPN showed the first-ever game atNationals Park inWashington, D.C. TheWashington Nationals defeated theAtlanta Braves on a walk-off home run byRyan Zimmerman.
On May 4, ESPN introduced enhanced updates targeting viewers who playfantasy baseball. It shows season batting statistics for the current batter on each potential count and updates batting average and other selected stats after the at-bat concludes.
Starting with the April 3 season opener between theNew York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, ESPN began using the same graphics package which debuted withMonday Night Football in2009. The score banner was converted to a score box in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. And instead of numbers to represent the balls, strikes and outs, dots were represented for each: three green dots for balls, two yellow dots for strikes, and two red dots for outs. The pitch count was also introduced, adopted from theNew York Yankees' broadcasts on theYES Network, as well asNESN for theBoston Red Sox. College baseball and softball broadcasts, however, continued to use the previous (2007) graphics for the2010 College World Series telecasts. ESPN's coverage of theLittle League World Series also retained the 2007 graphics until midway through, and then adopted the current (2010) graphics package.
Baseball Tonight, a daily highlight show aired on ESPN during the baseball season, likewise introduced new graphics adopted fromSportsCenter in June 2010.
TheESPN Major League Baseball score box was slightly modified beginning with the opening day game between theDetroit Tigers and theNew York Yankees. Numbers indicating the ball, strike and out counts replace the dots used last year; the out dots were adopted byFox Sports Net on their local broadcasts as well asMajor League Baseball on Fox. The pitch speed and count are now fixed below the bases graphic. Also, the area around the bases graphic and ball, strike, and out counter is slightly translucent.
Beginning with theSunday Night Baseballinterleague game between the New York Yankees and theChicago Cubs on June 19, the graphics were slightly adjusted to fit in with the16:9aspect ratio forHD broadcasts, similar to whatFox Saturday Baseball,Root Sports andFox Sports Net have done for their baseball coverage.TBS would follow suit in adjusting their graphics to the 16:9 aspect ratio.
The score box and other graphics were carried over from 2011,[15] but a new logo for all ESPN MLB presentations was unveiled at the start of the season. The ESPN logo was fixed on aCGI baseball, with the words 'Major League Baseball' (orBaseball Tonight andSunday,Monday orWednesday Night Baseball) in a stylizedneon light surrounding it. A 2-D version is also used on print ads or on secondary program IDs. The graphics would stay virtually the same for the next three seasons.
On August 28, Major League Baseball and ESPN agreed to an eight-year, $5.6 billion contract extension, the largest broadcasting deal in Major League Baseball history. It gave ESPN up to 90 regular-season games, one of the two Wild Card games that will rotate between American League and National League teams each year, and the rights to allregular-season tiebreaker games.[16][17]
For the 2015 season, ESPN introduced a new on-air appearance for baseball. Among its changes were a new, persistent K-Zone Live graphic, consisting of a faded white rectangle that is overlaid live atop thestrike zone on the home plate camera angle at all times. A new K-Zone 3D graphic, with ball trails and a three-dimensional box representing the strike zone, can also be used during replays.[18] The new live K-Zone graphic was criticized by viewers and the media for being potentially distracting, drawing comparisons to baseball video games andFox's "glowing puck" from itsNHL coverage.[19][20]
In the 2017 season, ESPN introduced a new camera angle known as "Front Row Cam"; it is designed to provide a "low-home" camera angle, and utilizes a cylindrical camera pointed vertically at a mirror inside an enclosure positioned along the wall behind home plate. During the American League Wild Card Game, ESPN also introduced a new "immersive" K-Zone 3D component, which allows the data to be rendered into a virtual stadium environment to be viewed at different perspectives.[21]
The 2018 season saw a revamp of ESPN's lead commentary team, withMatt Vasgersian succeeding Dan Shulman, andAlex Rodriguez joining as analyst. ESPN also anticipated increased use of the Front Row Cam onSunday Night Baseball, and the immersive K-Zone 3D feature being employed on all games (a move enabled by ESPN's full adoption of on-site graphics and replay systems operated remotely from its main studios in Bristol). ESPN also unveiled a major on-air rebranding for its MLB coverage.[22]
The2020 regular season was delayed by four months due to theCOVID-19 pandemic. Matt Vasgersian and Alex Rodriguez would broadcast all of ESPN's Sunday night games from a studio at theirBristol, Connecticut headquarters.[23] Also in July 2020, Major League Baseball announced that they would be expanding the playoffs,[24]
The 2020 postseason introduced an additional "Wild Card Series" round, featuring eight best-of-three series preceding the Division Series. ESPN acquired the rights to seven of the series, with one replacing the Wild Card Game it already carried (the last series was allocated to TBS to replace the Wild Card Game it held the rights to). On September 28, 2020, it was announced thatABC would carry at least four Wild Card Series games, marking ABC's first national MLB broadcastsince 1995.[25]
In2021, ESPN renewed its rights through the 2028 season, with the ability for either the network or MLB to opt-out of its contract after the2025 season. ESPN dropped most of its non-exclusive weeknight broadcasts, focusing primarily onSunday Night Baseball instead. The network continues to hold rights to at least 30 exclusive regular season games per season, includingSunday Night Baseball andOpening Day games, along with some weeknight games in the second half of the season. ESPN also received the rights to produce alternate telecasts on its sister networks, as well as simulcasts and expanded content onESPN+, and the ability to air selected games on ABC. The contract also gives ESPN full rights to all postseason Wild Card Series, which were made a permanent part of the postseason that year. In2022, ESPN aired exclusive Thursday games on Opening Day and the Thursday following the all-star break, as well as two exclusive Wednesday games and one exclusive Monday game during the summer.[26][27][28]
For the2024 season, ESPN acquired the rights to air twoMLB World Tour games in Seoul and one game of theMLB Mexico Series, in addition to their 30 exclusive games.[29] New features for the season included "volumetric" replays on its alternate Statcast broadcasts (which would generate replays of plays from the perspective of players), and a persistent "win probability" meter on the scorebug (based on input from ESPN statisticians).[30] To end the regular season, ESPN2 aired a doubleheader featuring theBraves and theMets. The games were originally scheduled to air on September 25 and 26 but were moved due toHurricane Helene. The broadcast wasblacked out in New York.[31] During the final three weeks of the season, ESPN or ESPN2 airedBaseball Tonight Special: MLB Squeeze Play on Wednesday nights. The studio show featured whip-around coverage focused on the pennant chase.[32]
On February 20, 2025, ESPN informed MLB that it had agreed to mutually opt out of its current contract after the conclusion of the 2025 season. In a memo to teams, commissionerRob Manfred described ESPN as a "shrinking platform" and expressed disappointment towards ESPN's decreasing commitment to MLB coverage, and stated that the league had "at least two potential options" for ESPN's package that would be presented to teams within the next few weeks.[33][34]
Through the years, ESPN has enhanced its Major League Baseball coverage with the introduction and implementation of innovative technology. Which include:
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