Why was the baseball network a failure?

Answer 1

I never even heard of the baseball network, maybe it failed because it did not even advertise to their target audience.

Answer 2

#1 Yankees Fan: Below the answer box, there is a space for you to cite your source. Failing to do so leaves the impression that you have knowledge or expertise of a subject that you obviously do not. Everyone understands that you know how to use Google, and the "cut and paste" features on your web browser. Congratulations on that ... you and my 6-year-old.

By the way, here is the link to the wikipedia page about The Baseball Network: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baseball_Network

To actually answer the question ... there are several reasons that a national network for baseball broadcasting was not and is not possible. Major League Baseball desperately would like to follow the NFL model for nationwide marketing. The difficulty is that sports fans are much more loyal to their baseball teams than to their football teams. This isn't a slight, it's just facts. Part of it is a factor of time. People obviously don't have enough time to watch their own team for 162 season games, when football is committed to one day a week (for the most part ... 2 if you count college).

Another problem is that baseball fans loyalty isn't always based on the region they find themselves living in. I lived in Eastern Indiana for a couple years, just 1 1/2 hrs. from Cincinnati, OH. There were at least 4 Cubs fans for every Reds fans, even though Wrigley was at least 5 hrs. away. Perhaps that's a bad example since the Cubs are one of the last remaining baseball teams to have a regular national broadcast. But the same could be said of where I live now, in Iowa, where we are situated closer to St. Louis and Kansas City, but there are by far more Twins fans than anything else.

Baseball is always going to have it's adherents, but those fans will just look different from their football counterparts, and the MLB is just now starting to get that fact. Baseball fans go to the ballpark, grab a hot dog, and take it all in. Football fans (using gross generalization) would rather sit at home, drink beer, eat chips and watch 3 or 4 games in a row.

Answer 3

There is an option for watching major league games via many cable providers. It's called MLB Extra Innings and requires a subscription and digital cable. Like the NFL Ticket, you can watch any MLB game. You can also subscribe to MLB.com and watch games on your computer.

Answer 4

Probably because baseball fans mostly want to see "their" team play, and they can get that from their local station.

Answer 5

Criticisms

A major problem with Baseball Night in America was the idea that viewers couldn't watch "important" games. Marty Noble put it in perspective by saying

“ With the Network determining when games will begin and which games are made available to which TV markets, Major League Baseball can conduct parts of its pennant races in relative secrecy. ”

What added to the troubles of The Baseball Network was the fact that Baseball Night in America held exclusivity over every market. This most severely impacted markets with two teams, specifically New York (Mets and Yankees), Los Angeles/Anaheim, Chicago (Cubs and White Sox) and San Francisco/Oakland. For example, if Baseball Night in America showed a Chicago Cubs game, this meant that nobody in Chicago could see that night's White Sox game and vice versa.


Things got so bad for The Baseball Network that even local broadcasters objected to its operations. KSMO-TV, an affiliate in Kansas City, went as far as to sue the Royals for breach of contract resulting from their broadcasts being "overexposed" and violating its territorial exclusivity. Worse yet, even if a market had only one team, the ABC or NBC affiliate could still not broadcast that team's game if the start time was not appropriate for the time zone. For example, if the Detroit Tigers (the only team in their market) played a road game in Seattle beginning at 8:00 p.m. PT (a late game), Detroit's Baseball Network affiliate couldn't air the game because the start time was too late for the Detroit area (11:00 p.m. ET). Detroit viewers only had the option of viewing the early game of the night.

Sports Illustrated, for one, was very harsh on The Baseball Network, for whom SI dubbed "America's regional pastime" and an "abomination." ABC Sports president Dennis Swanson, in announcing the dissolution of The Baseball Network

“ The fact of the matter is, Major League Baseball seems incapable at this point in time, of living with any longterm relationships, whether its with fans, with players, with the political community in Washington, with the advertising community here in Manhattan, or with its TV partners. ”

Five years after The Baseball Network dissolved, NBC Sports play-by-play man Bob Costas wrote in his book Fair Ball: A Fan's Case for Baseball that The Baseball Network was "stupid and an abomination." Costas wrote that the agreement involving the World Series being the only instance of The Baseball Network broadcasting a national telecast was an unprecedented surrender of prestige, as well as a slap to all serious fans. Unlike the NHL and the NBA, the so-called Big Two of North American professional sports leagues: the NFL and Major League Baseball nationally televised all playoff games for decades. While he believed that The Baseball Network fundamentally corrupted the game, Costas himself acknowledged that the most impassioned fans in baseball were now prevented from watching many of the playoff games that they wanted to see. Costas added that both the divisional series and the League Championship Series now merited scarcely higher priority than regional coverage provided for a Big Ten football game between Wisconsin and Michigan.

According to Curt Smith's book, The Voice - Mel Allen's Untold Story, the longtime New York Yankees broadcaster and This Week in Baseball host was quoted in saying

“ You wonder how anything would be worse [than CBS]. What kind of show (in response to TBN's tagline "Catch the show!") cancels a twenty-six-week-season's first fourteen weeks? ”


Downfall

The long term plans for The Baseball Network crumbled when the players went on strike on August 12, 1994 (thus forcing the cancellation of the World Series). As a result of the ABC and NBC decision to dissolve the partnership of The Baseball Network on June 22, 1995, the two networks decided to share the duties of televising the 1995 World Series as a way to recoup (with ABC broadcasting Games 1, 4, and 5, and if it had been needed, Game 7, as they had won the 1994 coin toss, and NBC broadcasting Games 2, 3, and 6), announced that they were opting out of their agreement with Major League Baseball. Both networks figured that as the delayed 1995 baseball season opened without a labor agreement, there was no guarantee against another strike.

Others would argue that a primary reason for its failure was its abandoning of localized markets in favor of more lucrative and stable advertising contracts afforded by turning to a national model of broadcasting, similar to the National Football League's television package, which focuses on localized games, with one or two "national" games.


Aftermath


Both networks (but not corporations) soon publicly vowed to cut all ties with Major League Baseball for the remainder of the 20th century, and FOX signed on to be the exclusive network carrier of Major League Baseball regular season games in 1996. However, NBC kept a postseason-only (with the exception of even numbered years when NBC had the rights to the All-Star Game) deal in the end, signing a deal to carry three Division Series games, one half of the League Championship Series (the ALCS in even numbered years and the NLCS in odd numbered years; Fox would televise the other LCS in said years), and the 1997 and 1999 World Series respectively (FOX had exclusive rights to the 1996, 1998 and 2000 World Series).

With ABC being sold to the Walt Disney Company in 1996, ESPN would pick up Division Series day and late-night games with provision similar to ESPN's National Football League games, where the games would air on network affiliates in the local markets of the two teams only. ESPN's Major League Baseball contract was not affected then but would take a hit in 1998 with the new National Football League contract.

In the end, the venture would lose $95 million in advertising and nearly $500 million in national and local spending.

Maybe THAT will awnser you're question.

Answer 6

Because unless you are watching your favorite team it is like watching paint dry.I can watch any NFL game and have interest, but unless I am watching my favorite team(Phillies)its way too boring.