If You Can't Come Out To The Game, Watch Us On TV

As Major League Baseball became the first of the four major pro sports to resume within the past week, its impact on sports media was felt immediately.

The national networks were able to jump right in with multiple national telecasts, including MLB Network having the very rare opportunity of overlapping some of its live game telecasts against ESPN national games. Fox Sports knowingly overlapped on Saturday (7/25) when FS1 began its Saturday night telecast less than two hours after Fox Sports began its prime time Yankees vs. Nationals telecast.

Many teams reported significantly higher ratings for local (regional) telecasts, as expected with the long absence of live pro sports. For example, the St. Louis Cardinals opening night telecast scored a rating which was 79% above the 2019 season opener ratings. Those numbers made it a higher rated telecast than any Fox Sports Midwest telecasts of the 2019 regular season, during which the Cardinals won the N.L. Central by only two games.

The shortened season is keeping Amazon from delivering in one respect. Amazon Sports was originally scheduled to simulcast 21 Yankees telecasts (regionally) which were not scheduled to be shown on their YES Network. This is/was due to the new MLB policy allowing teams to sell streaming rights to games not shown on their regional networks. (Subject to the specifics of individual team deals with their local/regional networks.)

However, the shortened season resulted in the Yankees canceling their WPIX contract in order to carry every available game (minus ESPN exclusives) on YES for the season. Not many people realize that Amazon will still benefit, since Amazon now owns a percentage of the YES Network.

Chicago Cubs fans were delighted to see a deal struck between Comcast and the new Marquee Network which allows more than 90% of the Chicago market to get Cubs telecasts. Until the announcement, the telecasts would have remained available to only roughly 40% of the market. The announcement of a deal came during morning drive on Opening Day (7/24), less than 12 hours before the first regular season game. There is no additional fee required for Comcast subscribers, much to the surprise of its subscribers who feared a separate monthly fee.

Next up will be the scheduled restarts for the NBA and NHL. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in terms of viewership for two reasons. First, it will be interesting to see whether or not MLB telecast ratings drop in accordance with NBA and/or NHL telecasts, especially in markets which do not host MLB teams.

The standings may also determine. For example, New York and Chicago do not have their teams playing in the NBA Playoffs, while there are expectations for their baseball teams. Los Angeles viewing might be the most interesting, given the strong presence of the Lakers and Clippers going against high expectations for the Dodgers.

Hopefully it will work out that sports will be able to continue and we can all see how this turns out.