Center Field Shot 

MLB had no national cable coverage from 1984-89.  During these six seasons, MLB as an entity continued to rely on its shared broadcast revenue.  But individual teams did continue to be active with Superstations and emerging local/regional cable operations.

During these years, ESPN became identified as the outlet for major sports, shedding CFL games and obscure college sports.  By 1987 ESPN, now owned in part by Capital Cities/ABC, was the largest and most profitable cable network. In that year, ESPN added a package of Sunday night NFL games to go along with its NBA, NHL, and NCAA basketball and football telecasts.

In 1989 MLB entered into a four year contract (covering the 1990-93 seasons) with ESPN for an estimated $400 million.  Despite the fact that ESPN had now passed 50 million homes in reach, network executives saw it as at best a “break even” proposition.  ESPN subsequently claimed multimillion dollar losses on the contract, although their loses were hardly devastating because:

1.  MLB gave ESPN, for the first time, year round major league sports. Although viewing levels are lower in summer, the huge drop-off due to lack of compelling programming was no longer a problem for ESPN.  By airing about 175 games per season, ESPN was gaining in excess of 500 hours of first run and desirable programming per year.

2.  ESPN was able to leverage its purchase by the creation of new non-game programming such as Baseball Tonight.

3.  MLB was the last building block in making ESPN the most important brand name in sports media and marketing.  Within a few years, the corporation was able to extend the brand via ESPN2, ESPNNEWS, ESPN Magazine, and ESPNZone bar/restaurants.  ESPN would have expanded without baseball, but not so as quickly and with more competition.  If ESPN had not made the deal, another cable network would have done been happy to talk with MLB.