Major League Baseball on TBS


Major League Baseball on TBS is a presentation of regular season and postseason Major League Baseball game telecasts that air on the American pay television network TBS. The games are produced by Turner Sports.

History

Pre-2007: relationship with the Braves

baseball games had been a local staple on Atlanta independent station WTBS since Turner acquired the team's broadcast rights in 1973, and subsequently gained national prominence when the station was uplinked to satellite in December 1976, becoming one of America's first superstations. Along with Chicago-based WGN-TV and New York-based WWOR-TV, WTBS was one of the few television stations that broadcast local sporting events to a national audience, with some even giving the Braves the title "America's Team".
On July 11, 1988, the day before the Major League Baseball All-Star Game from Cincinnati, TBS televised the annual All-Star Gala from the Cincinnati Zoo. Larry King hosted the broadcast with Craig Sager and Pete Van Wieren handling interviews. The broadcast's big draw would've been the Home Run Derby, which TBS intended on taping during the afternoon, and later airing it in prime time during the Gala coverage. The Gala coverage also had some canned features such as highlights from previous All-Star Games, a segment on Cincinnati's baseball history, a video recap of the season's first half and, a slow-motion highlight montage set to "This Is the Time" by Styx frontman Dennis DeYoung. Unfortunately, the derby and a skills competition were canceled due to rain. As a result, TBS scrambled to try to fill nearly an hour of now-open airtime. For example, the Gatlin Brothers, the event's musical guests, who had already played a full concert, were asked to come back out and play some more.
Sister network TNT was actually in the running to gain the cable portion of the baseball TV rights beginning in 1990. However, ESPN won the final bid with the league.
When Major League Baseball was realigned into three divisions each within the American and National Leagues in, TBS offered Major League Baseball US$40-$45 million a year for rights to another round of postseason games. Instead, Major League Baseball along with ABC and NBC formed a revenue sharing joint venture called The Baseball Network. Meanwhile, CBS was offering $130 million a year to renew its previous contract before being shut out, as well.
During NBC's coverage of the 2000 Division Series between the New York Yankees and Oakland Athletics, regular play-by-play announcer Bob Costas decided to take a breather after anchoring NBC's prime time coverage of the Summer Olympic Games from Sydney. In Costas' place was Atlanta Braves announcer Skip Caray, who teamed with Joe Morgan before Costas' return for the ALCS. It wasn't just Costas but all of NBC's production crews who were down in Sydney. The Olympics ended just two or three days before the MLB playoffs started that year, so the TBS crew worked the Division Series games for NBC.
In 2003, the Braves telecasts on TBS underwent significant changes for the first time in many years, reflecting an increase in the network's rights fee payments to Major League Baseball. In turn, national sponsors could fulfill their advertising commitments by purchasing ads on TBS, in addition to ESPN or Fox. In the process, Don Sutton and Joe Simpson assumed duties as lead commentators, while longtime play-by-play announcers Skip Caray and Pete Van Wieren had their participation on the broadcasts reduced. This was done in an attempt to combat criticism of Caray's on-air "home team" bias and to market its baseball coverage to fans of MLB teams other than the Braves. Meanwhile, the brand Braves Baseball on TBS was replaced by Major League Baseball on TBS. The move was strongly criticized by Braves fans, Atlanta area media outlets and Braves manager Bobby Cox. Over 90% of Braves fans who voted in an online poll conducted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution preferred Caray and Van Wieren to the more neutral broadcasts. The move backfired, and ratings for the TBS broadcasts declined sharply. After that year's All-Star break, TBS brought back Caray and Van Wieren to work with the two analysts, while broadcasts reverted to the Braves Baseball on TBS brand the following year.

2007–2013: Going national

On October 17, 2006, TBS signed an agreement with Major League Baseball which earned the network exclusive rights to all Division Series playoff games, one of the League Championship Series, as well as rights to the All-Star Selection Show held in late June or early July, from 2007 to 2013. A national Sunday afternoon baseball package was also planned starting with the 2008 season. As a part of the deal, the Turner Broadcasting System management decided to limit Braves games to local telecasts within the Atlanta market. On October 1, 2007, the Turner Broadcasting System severed the ties between WTBS and the TBS cable channel, converting the Atlanta station into an in-market independent station that assumed the call letters WPCH-TV, branding on-air as "Peachtree TV".
Along with this, Comcast and other cable providers within the Atlanta market began carrying the national TBS feed for the first time. WPCH-TV continued to air Braves games, but they were only broadcast within the team's designated market area and throughout Canada; in the latter case, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission never allowed the TBS cable feed to be eligible for carriage on Canadian cable and satellite providers as a superstation, only giving permission for the Atlanta area signal. WPCH would lose television rights to the Braves after 40 years in 2013, when Fox Sports South – which took over production responsibilities for the games from Turner Sports after the Meredith Corporation, owner of Atlanta's CBS affiliate WGCL-TV, assumed WPCH's operations through a local marketing agreement formed in 2011 – acquired the regional television rights to the station's 45-game package beginning with the 2014 season. Although the channel is not available in the country, TBS's game broadcasts are carried in Canada on Sportsnet. All games include a Spanish language play-by-play feed that is transmitted via the SAP audio channel.
Since TBS assumed rights to the regular season package, several contests that have aired on the network have featured the Braves. On October 7, 2010, TBS carried its first Braves postseason game since the package began: Game 1 of the National League Division Series against the San Francisco Giants.
On the July 2, 2011 edition of the CBS Sports Spectacular, TBS's Atlanta-based Major League Baseball studio crew of Matt Winer, Dennis Eckersley, Cal Ripken, Jr. and David Wells presented a 2011 Major League Baseball midseason report. This was followed by MLB 2011: Down the Stretch, which aired on September 24. CBS Sports and Turner Sports have in the past, partnered together to provide coverage of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament and the Winter Olympics in 1992, 1994 and 1998. On August 29, 2012, The New York Times reported that CBS and TBS may strike a potential alliance for a Major League Baseball television contract effective with the 2014 season. According to the report, CBS "would most likely want only the All-Star Game and World Series", an arrangement almost similar to the one NBC had with Major League Baseball from 1996 to 2000.
For the 2012 and 2013 seasons, TBS was awarded the rights to televise both Wild Card Playoff games that occur the day before the Division Series games. In exchange, MLB Network was awarded the rights to televise two Division Series games, rights that previously belonged to TBS. TBS retained the right to air any tie-breaker games to determine the team that moves onto a Wild Card Playoff game which are considered part of the regular season; this occurred in 2013 with a match between the Tampa Bay Rays and Texas Rangers.

Coverage debuts

2007
On October 2, 2012, Turner Sports renewed its contract with Major League Baseball, originally expected to expire in 2014, through the 2021 season. A major change is that the postseason would now be split between TBS and Fox networks; TBS carries most of the Division Series and Championship Series games for one of the leagues per-season, with the opposite league's games conversely carried by Fox, and selected games in both carried by MLB Network. The World Series remains exclusive to Fox, while rights to the wild card games remain split between TBS and ESPN. TBS would retain a non-exclusive late-season package of 13 regular season games on Sunday afternoons, down from 26 under the previous contract, and now co-existing with local broadcasts. The contract is valued at $2.8 billion over eight seasons.
In June 2020, it was reported that WarnerMedia was preparing to renew its rights through 2028, maintaining most of the existing broadcasting arrangements. The value of the contract was expected to increase to $470 million per-season.

Viewers and ratings

SeasonAvg. ViewersChangeRef
2008624,000—
2009614,000–2%
2010557,000–9%
2011556,000–0%
2012448,000–19%
2013375,000–16%
2014309,000–18%
2015413,000+34%

Scheduling

TBS typically begins game coverage with the pregame show MLB on Deck, followed 37 or 38 minutes later by the first pitch of the first game. Each day's coverage ends with Inside MLB. TBS does not show commercial breaks after the third and sixth innings. Instead, it airs a "Game Break" allowing the studio host and analysts more airtime. The studio shows originate from Studio J at Turner Sports's headquarters in Atlanta, which is also used for TNT's NBA coverage.

Regular season

During the regular season, TBS broadcasts a weekly game nationally on Sunday afternoons, under the title Sunday MLB on TBS. These games are not exclusive to TBS and are blacked out in local markets, to protect the stations that hold the local broadcast rights to the games. In the affected areas, simulcasts of programming from sister network HLN air in place of the games. Under the deal, TBS can show an alternate game in those markets, but the network has elected not to do so thus far.
Despite initial reports that TBS would carry games on Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day, these holiday games are not part of the contract. For many years, games on these holidays were shown on ESPN, but that network has discontinued them, with the occasional exception of when they fall into the regular Sunday/Monday/Wednesday night slots.
TBS released a partial schedule of its inaugural slate of Sunday games on February 27, 2008. More games would be added as the season progressed, generally two weeks before each telecast date. TBS has the second pick of game after ESPN.
Consequently, due to its non-exclusivity, highlights of a scheduled game that aired on MLB on TBS are not shown on the ESPN baseball highlight show Baseball Tonight, nor are live simulcasts and highlights of the said game on the MLB.TV subscription service; instead local broadcasts of the scheduled game are shown. However, highlights of an MLB on TBS game did air on the MLB on Fox weekly program This Week in Baseball, as well as MLB Tonight on the MLB Network.

Postseason

Before the postseason, TBS aired any tie-breaker games for divisional and one of the two wild card games. Should multiple tie-breaking games be played, or if multiple Division Series games are going on at the same time, those additional games air on TBS' sister network, TNT. However, games between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox are subject to be moved to Fox.
From 2007 to 2010, when TBS aired every Division Series game, start times were staggered throughout the day from early afternoon to late primetime. The first game was usually scheduled to start at 1:07 and the last game was usually scheduled for 9:07. If a game ran long, the start of the next game would be shifted to TNT. For the LCS round, TBS would show all of the games at a start time pre-set by MLB. All coverage was followed by Inside MLB. This schedule was brought back for 2013 only, except that MLB Network aired the two games scheduled for the early afternoon slot.
In 2007, TBS switched the starts of four games to TNT in the Division Series round because the previous games exceeded the time limit. TNT was also scheduled to air Game 4 of the Diamondbacks-Cubs series, which overlapped with Game 3 of the Red Sox-Angels series, but the former game was not played; the night before, the D-Backs completed a three-game sweep of the Cubs.
With TBS only holding the rights to half of the postseason beginning in 2014, the network aired games at start times that did not conflict with Fox, ESPN, or MLB Network's coverage of the postseason, and airs Inside MLB following the conclusion of its own coverage instead of at the conclusion of all games on a given day.
Beginning in 2016, the usually all-news network CNN en Español carries TBS's postseason coverage with the Spanish language audio, though no language adjustments are made to the on-screen graphics. The Spanish audio is also available through TBS's second audio program, and the coverage on CNN en Español is subject to pre-emption for appropriate breaking news coverage.
For the 2016 American League Championship Series between the Cleveland Indians and Toronto Blue Jays, Sportsnet, a property of Blue Jays owner Rogers Communications, aired all games in Canada using the TBS feeds.
The 2020 regular season was delayed by four months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That July, Major League Baseball announced that they would be expanding the playoffs, with ESPN and TBS gaining the extra games. The 2020 postseason would now have 16 teams and begin with eight best-of-three Wild Card Series preceding the Division Series. All of the new playoff games would be exclusively televised by ESPN and TBS, with ESPN holding exclusive rights to seven of the eight series.

TNT's involvement

As stated earlier, TNT is TBS's outlet to air the beginning of LDS games in case of an overrun on TBS. When the TBS game finishes the TNT game is switched back to TBS.
However, in 2011 and 2012, TNT aired its own slate of postseason Division Series games, due to MLB's desire to air fewer LDS games in the early afternoon. This was the first time TNT had ever aired regularly scheduled MLB games, however it used TBS's announcers and production crews with the only difference being the TNT logo in the scorebox replacing the usual TBS logo.
In 2011, TNT aired Rays–Rangers Game 1, Tigers–Yankees Games 1 and 2, and Brewers–Diamondbacks Game 3. To clarify, on October 1, 2011, TNT aired Game 2 of the Tampa Bay Rays vs. the Texas Rangers at 7 p.m. ET, which overlapped with the end of Game 1 of the St. Louis Cardinals vs. the Philadelphia Phillies and the continuation of Game 1 of the Detroit Tigers vs. the New York Yankees on TBS. On October 2, it aired the rescheduled Game 2 between the Tigers and the Yankees at 3 p.m. ET, two hours before Game 2 of the Arizona Diamondbacks vs. the Milwaukee Brewers on TBS. On October 4, it aired Game 3 of the Diamondbacks vs. the Brewers at 9:30 p.m. ET, one hour after Game 3 of the Tigers vs. the Yankees started on TBS.
In 2012, TNT aired Reds–Giants Game 1, and A's–Tigers Games 4 and 5.

Announcers

On January 28, 2007, TBS' executive producer Jeff Behnke said that Chip Caray "is definitely going to be TBS' lead play-by-play announcer for division series and LCS games." Indeed, TBS announced in April 2007 that Baseball Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, who has experience in broadcasting with ESPN and the San Diego Padres, would join Caray in the booth. Veteran Braves play-by-play man Skip Caray, Chip's father was vocal about not being part of the coverage in comments he made to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
TBS' studio team was Inside the NBA host Ernie Johnson Jr. along with the other member of the 2007 Baseball Hall of Fame class, Cal Ripken Jr. On September 24, it was announced that the studio show would also include Frank Thomas, who played for the Toronto Blue Jays during the season. Thomas and other active players such as Curtis Granderson and John Smoltz made guest appearances during the playoffs. The studio coverage is titled Inside MLB. As previously mentioned, in, Don Orsillo and Joe Simpson called the one game playoff between the Colorado Rockies and the San Diego Padres to decide the National League wild card.
In the 2008 season, Chip Caray, Ron Darling, and Buck Martinez formed the lead broadcast crew for Sunday games on TBS. Darling and Martinez have taken turns as analysts. Marc Fein, who was the last TBS Braves Baseball studio host, had the same duties here, providing updates throughout the day from other MLB games. Johnson also hosted from time-to-time.
TBS disclosed its initial roster of postseason announcers on September 18, 2008. In, Dick Stockton called the American Central tiebreaker game between the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins with Ron Darling, Harold Reynolds and field reporter Marc Fein.
In, Chip Caray, Ron Darling, and field reporter Craig Sager called the one game playoff between the Minnesota Twins and Detroit Tigers for the American League Central title.
Brian Anderson took over for Ernie Johnson Jr. as the lead play-by-play man for TBS during the 2011 postseason because Johnson had to care for his son Michael.
Mike Bordick, a color analyst for the Orioles' regular-season telecasts, and Steve Physioc, a play-by-play man for the Royals' TV/radio broadcasts, were employed as field-level commentators for TBS' coverage of the 2014 American League Championship Series along with Matt Winer.
Don Orsillo replaced Ernie Johnson Jr. on TBS' 2018 ALDS coverage after Johnson announced that he would not cover the Major League Baseball playoffs as a result of his treatment for the blood clots in both of his legs.

Criticism of TBS's coverage

TBS's coverage has been met with criticism by some observers. As with TNT's NBA playoff coverage, MLB playoff games on TBS are not made available to local broadcast television stations in the participating teams' designated market areas. Under the previous contract, ESPN was required to make those games available over-the-air in these local markets.
Following the Philadelphia Phillies' victory in the 2009 NLCS, studio host Ernie Johnson went to the podium to present the championship trophy. Upon announcing what a pleasure it was for TBS to cover the series, the Philadelphia fans responded with a heavy barrage of boos, to which Johnson quipped, "Why, thank you."
Fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates, which in 2013, had its first winning season as well as its postseason appearance since 1992, took TBS to task for not broadcasting the traditional pre-game player introductions, "The Star-Spangled Banner", or ceremonial first pitch during their coverage of the National League Wild Card playoff game against the Cincinnati Reds.
Following Game 1 of the 2016 World Series, Fox affiliate WJW in Cleveland, which would carry the Cleveland Indians' World Series appearance via Fox, aired a brief commercial criticizing TBS, in light of the mistakes and errors that had run rampant throughout their playoff coverage.

Commentators

Some sports media critics were critical of the announcers used in the coverage as being more skewed towards the National League than the American League, along with the choice of Chip Caray as the lead voice of the network's coverage, as he had only done Braves baseball telecasts during the 2007 season before TBS assumed rights to playoff coverage. In response to such criticisms, Caray said, "It wasn't the job that I had when I came here in the first place. It would be like being a pinch-hitter or being a relief pitcher that works once every ten days. I'm better when I work more." TBS and Caray parted ways following the 2009 playoffs. Ernie Johnson Jr. and Brian Anderson have both since contributed as the lead announcer since 2010.
Besides that of Caray, Dick Stockton's performance has in particular, been subject to criticism. Stockton, for instance, during the 2013 NLDS was cited as often misidentifying players, generally appearing confused at times, and never having hosting chemistry with his analyst Bob Brenly. Meanwhile, Joe Simpson, who was the only holdover from the Braves TBS Baseball days, has been accused of not really adding anything to the booth and often deferring to John Smoltz during their time together on the 2013 Boston-Tampa Bay series.
Ernie Johnson Jr., meanwhile, has been accused of not playing to his strengths as a broadcaster in his role as TBS's lead play-by-play man. More to the point, Johnson was accused of never really seeming to be able to capture the big, exciting, transformational moments during his broadcast of the 2014 American League Wild Card Game between the Kansas City Royals and Oakland Athletics. For example, there was Johnson's rather subdued call of Brandon Moss’s second home run that gave Oakland a 5-3 lead in the top of the 6th.
During the bottom of the third inning of Game 5 of the 2015 National League Division Series between the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers, TBS's cameras caught a tense exchange between Dodgers manager Don Mattingly and outfielder Andre Ethier. So when TBS went to an interview conducted between innings by Sam Ryan in the Dodgers' dugout with Mattingly, the assumption was that Ryan would ask Mattingly what happened. Ryan then proceeded to ask Mattingly instead, how he thought Zack Greinke was pitching, what he thought of the game so far. Later in the broadcast, Cal Ripken Jr. brought up what we had all seen when Ethier came up to bat again in the fifth, saying, "We’re still guessing what that argument was all about."
In Game 2 of the aforementioned Mets-Dodgers NLDS, Ripken was quick to categorize Chase Utley's slide into Mets shortstop, Rubén Tejada as a clean play, "a little late," and nothing more than "competitive baseball".
During the 2018 ALDS, analyst Ron Darling apologized after making an insensitive comment about New York Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka during Game 2 of the Yankees' series against Boston. Early in the broadcast while attempting to point out a weakness of Tanaka’s, Darling said “A little chink in the armor for Tanaka here. It’s the first inning where he’s lost a little of his control.”

Technical difficulties and other miscues

TBS was unable to air most of the first inning of Game 6 of the 2008 American League Championship Series, airing a rerun of The Steve Harvey Show in its place. TBS began airing the game just prior to the last out in the bottom of the first, with announcer Chip Caray apologizing to viewers for "technical difficulties." TBS acknowledged there was a problem with one of the routers used in the broadcast transmission of the relay of the telecast from Atlanta.
During the network's coverage of Game 1 of the 2011 American League Division Series between the Texas Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays, TBS was alleged to have featured doctored headlines with incorrect attributions. On October 1, during the middle of an at-bat during Game 1 of the 2011 ALDS between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers, TBS suddenly cut to an ALDS game between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Texas Rangers, which was airing on TNT, for about 14 seconds. Moments later, cameras missed Yankees right fielder Nick Swisher making a diving catch. TBS has also been criticized for placing the center-field camera precisely in the center. Therefore, every time a pitcher began his windup, his head would block the view of home plate.
During the 2012 American League playoffs, TBS was criticized for its graphics and game preview packages. At the start of its coverage of the American League Wild Card Game between the Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers, a graphical snafu resulted in Cal Ripken Jr., who was calling the game, being credited as "Carl Ripken Jr." During Game 1 of the American League Championship Series between the New York Yankees and Detroit Tigers, TBS showed a graphic depicting players who played in the postseason before the age of 24 and after the age of 40. In the graphic, Willie Mays's name was misspelled as "Willie Mayes".
During their coverage of 2014 AL Wild Card Game, TBS put a graphic that incorrectly said that Oakland manager Bob Melvin was in his fourth straight playoff appearance, but this was only his third straight. Throughout the evening, TBS's broadcast was cited in not having enough adequate camera angles for replays that provided value to viewers. As opposed to productions that bring extra resources and cameras to playoff games, TBS's broadcast of this particular game was cited as feeling more like a weekly or regional telecast. That was arguably manifested in Kansas City Royals legend George Brett being forced into a "Very Funny" promo.
During the top of the third inning of Game 3 of the 2016 American League Division Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers, TBS's Matt Winer was doing a live interview with Texas third base coach Tony Beasley, when Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus hit a home run. Winer had to cut off Beasley during the interview to tell the audience that Andrus got "a double", before then realizing it was a home run. When Andrus finally rounded third base, Winer said, "Excuse me, that's not a double; that's a home run." As a direct result of all of this, there wasn't full screen of the Andrus homer, nor was there a proper play-by-play of the home run.
During the 2016 season, TBS debuted a new scoreboard design that was criticized by viewers for its large size. The following season, TBS was criticized again for having initially made its scoreboard too small.

Digital on-screen graphics

Before TBS gained rights to broadcast MLB postseason games in 2007, the network used a score bug on the top left-hand corner of the screen for its Braves telecasts. It was upgraded midway through the 2004 season and used through 2007.

2007–2010

The on-screen score graphic during this period covered the entire top of the screen, unlike the Braves TBS Baseball graphic, which only took up the left half of the top. The look is almost identical to that used during Fox's baseball coverage, except that the illustration of the basepaths is near the left side of the screen instead of flushed on the right. The batting order starting lineup used beginning in 2008 resembles that of a cellphone. There is also a pitch tracker that can only be seen on the network's high-definition feed.

2011–2015

With the start of the 2011 postseason, TBS planned to introduce the following
TBS's standard definition feed now airs a letterboxed version of the native HD feed during game broadcasts to match Fox's default widescreen SD presentation, allowing the right side pitch tracking graphic to be seen by those viewing the SD feed.

2016-present

At the beginning of the 2016 season, TBS introduced new graphics that were used all season including the postseason.
The score box, which was originally docked to the top and left edges of the screen, was completely redesigned for 2017 after much criticism during the 2016 postseason for its large size. Like the 2016 score bug, the current one still stands in the top left corner, only it is smaller.