Word: mlb
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...launching its own 24/7 cable channel in the midst of the country's worst recession since the Great Depression. On Jan. 1, the league, looking to tap into fans' endless demand for stats, scores and late-breaking news on a middle reliever's rotator cuff, will debut the MLB Network, a channel that promises to cover every crack of the bat, in or out of season. (Read TIME's top 10 sports moments...
...there really demand for that much baseball, especially at a time of year when most sports nuts are focused on college bowl games and the NFL playoffs? The nation's cable and satellite providers think so: the MLB Network will debut in over 50 million homes - the U.S. has around 115 million television households - making it the largest pay-TV launch in history. "This is the next step in the evolution of delivering baseball to our fans," says Bob DuPuy, Major League Baseball's president and chief operating officer...
...amount to much in the dead of winter, so the network's New Year's Day debut 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...
...catching set is nice. But in an advertising market that's softer than a knuckleball, baseball realizes it's a horrible time to be launching any kind of business. "This economy is not good for anybody; it would be silly to say anything else," says Tim Brosnan, MLB's executive vice president in charge of business...
...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...