Center Field Shot
A History of Baseball on Television
James R. Walker
Saint Xavier University
3700 W. 103rd St.
Chicago, IL 60655
walker
Chapter 12 Excerpt
Baseball’s Television Partnerships
As rights fees for Major League Baseball and all other major sports leagues exploded in the 1970s and 1980s, the nature of the relationship between sports and television providers changed. Media companies and major sports began to realize that working together, rather than just for their own interests, could produce even more revenue. The bigger income pie benefited both parties. The word “partnership” increasingly became the main descriptor of the relationship. Sports rights became a key branding strategy for national, regional, and local television. A sports coverage brand differentiated one network from its increasing number of competitors for audience attention. For the Regional Sports Networks (RSNs) that developed in the 1980s, local sports teams were the raison d’être of their existence. Indeed, local teams sometimes forced RSNs to become “partners” or lose their sports product to other distributors.
James R. Walker
Saint Xavier University
3700 W. 103rd St.
Chicago, IL 60655
walker
