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...will consist of an hour-long studio show at 6 p.m., followed by the original telecast of Don Larsen's perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Before the season starts, the MLB Network will primarily feature sports news, original documentaries and spring-training reports for every team. The channel will broadcast World Baseball Classic games in March and 26 regular-season games during the year. The network's signature show is slated to be MLB Tonight, an eight-hour nighttime highlights program featuring updates and occasional live coverage of ongoing games. Think of ESPN's popular highlight program Baseball...
...Popular ex-ESPN commentator Harold Reynolds and former Mets pitcher Al Leiter will man the studio, provide analysis and serve as the faces of the channel. The network was planning to eventually move into a shiny new office tower in New York City's Harlem neighborhood, but construction never started because of the credit markets' collapse. Instead, the baseball channel will operate out of MSNBC's old studio in Secaucus, N.J., which was supposed to be a temporary home until the Harlem building was finished. The space features a 9,600-sq.-ft. replica baseball field, replete with dugouts, outfield...
...However, the MLB Network's 50 million homes give it unprecedented scale. The other league-owned and -operated sports channels still haven't hit baseball's numbers, and they've been around a lot longer. NBA TV, launched in 1999 but still relegated to the more expensive tier of sports cable channels, has only 15 million subscribers. The five-year-old NFL Network, which has waged mortal combat against cable operators for more favorable distribution terms, reaches just 42 million homes. The subscription revenues from the cable and satellite operators could keep the MLB Network buoyant in a tough advertising...
...Though other large operators, like Charter Communications and Cablevision, don't have a stake, they agreed to carry the channel after the big boys signed on. Thanks to baseball's rather inexpensive asking price, companies have been more willing to play ball with MLB. Baine says that while the NFL demanded an 85 cents-per-subscriber fee from operators to carry its network, baseball asked for a more reasonable 25 cents. The network will appear on the basic digital tier of every major provider except for the Dish Network. "No one is going to get 50 million homes...
...What's more, at least the other channels show a steady diet of games, while the MLB Network is slated to show a relatively paltry 26 of them all season. It could still increase that number this season, and it plans to air more games down the road. But for the moment, the channel is contractually restricted from airing games opposite those being broadcast on ESPN, Fox and TBS, baseball's national television partners. Will fans care enough about documentaries, shop talk and game highlights that they can get from ESPN - and from ESPN personalities they've become attached...