Overview of coverage of American professional baseball on television
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The MLB on Fox pre- and post-game broadcast set at Progressive Field in Cleveland during its coverage of the 2016 World Series
Major League Baseball (MLB) has been broadcast on American television since the 1950s, with initial broadcasts on the experimental station W2XBS, the predecessor of the modern WNBC in New York. The World Series was televised on a networked basis since 1947, with regular season games broadcast nationally since 1953. Over the forthcoming years, MLB games became major attractions for American television networks, and each of the Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) would air packages of baseball games at various times until the year 2000. Fox would rise to major network status, partially on its acquisition of MLB rights in 1996; Fox has been MLB's primary broadcast television partner ever since.
MLB broadcasts would later shape the emerging medium of cable television. In particular, out of market baseball would attract customers to superstations in the late 20th Century, such as WGN and WTBS airing Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves games, respectively. MLB also played a big role in the growth of ESPN since it began airing games in 1990. TBS, the national feed spun off from WTBS, has also aired nationally televised games since 2007. MLB itself launched its own cable network in 2009, MLB Network, which would also air several live games a week. And MLB broadcasts have been shown on Fox's various sister cable networks, with Fox Sports 1 airing games since 2014.
MLB began streaming games via the internet in 2017, with Twitter and Facebook initially acquiring the rights to some games. YouTube has since streamed games since 2019, and both Apple TV+ and Peacock also have streamed games since 2022.
Games not picked up by one of the national outlets are instead broadcast by local broadcast stations and regional sports networks, televising their respective local team within their respective region. A number of nationally televised games are also non-exclusive, meaning that the national telecasts may also air in tandem with those of the game by local broadcasters.
As the only team in Canada, the TV rights to the Toronto Blue Jays are a special case: Blue Jays games are aired nationally in that country, with Sportsnet holding the rights since 1999. Sportsnet also carries other MLB games simulcast from a U.S. feed.
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