Can't sleep, found myself down a wikipedia rabbit hole reading about what a disaster the rights to Major League Baseball were for CBS (1990-1993). CBS wrote the book on football, but had no clue how to produce baseball telecasts. They tried to make Tim McCarver their John Madden, which is dumb enough on its face without even considering this meant CBS wanted Jack Buck to be subordinate to him. In a sign of things to come, CBS was more interested in market size than pennant races when it came to featuring games. And in a such-bad-food-and-such-small-portions twist, they only ended up carrying like 16 games a year. The whole thing went so poorly that the network asked baseball for their money back. Baseball said no.

CBS took a total bath on this, which had implications for two leagues: not only did their terrible approach devalue the entire concept of national baseball telecasting to this day, but the loss they took surely played a part in CBS losing the NFC to Fox. (An interesting side effect of that is that in Milwaukee, channel 6 actually switched affiliations from CBS to Fox so as to continue being the Packers' flagship, leaving the Milwaukee market briefly CBS-less until a UHF station all the way at 58 picked up the network.) In the end, CBS lost their most treasured sports property the way NBC lost theirs, NBC and baseball having been joined at the hip since the days of AM radio.

Of current broadcasting deals, the NBA on ABC (or, gak, the NBA on ESPN, which is sometimes on ABC) probably leaves me the coldest. TNT, as a spiritual successor to the NBA on NBC, is probably the best sports property on television; in comparison, the NBA on ESPN/ABC just feels like they're going through the motions. ESPN's strong suits were always baseball, hockey, and college sports: they always seemed like they were in over their heads with the NFL (does anyone else remember how wretched ESPN's Sunday Night Football was?) and only took on the NBA so they could boast all four major leagues.

I don't watch tennis like I used to, but I suspect ESPN's monopoly of the Slams leaves us worse off than when NBC and TNT had Wimbledon, or USA and CBS had the U.S. Open. Connors-Krickstein rain delay theater, your sign that summer was over!

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Baseball and TBS is the worst the league/network pairing right now. Fox doesn't do much better, but TBS would even be better if they just threw the NBA crew out there to do games. Everything abput their telecasts is just bad.

NBA and ESPN is not very good, but they make up a little by having pretty solid announce teams. Mike Tirico and Hubie Brown are a very good pairing, and JVG can still be interesting at times. Doris Burke can die in a fire, but she's only on the C team.

ESPN doesn't really do NFL well either, but at least they only get 1 meaningless game per week. I pray that the NFL isn't stupid enough to give them playoff games or a Super Bowl.

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I know hockey isn't in the realm of the other major sports in terms of popularity, but their TV deal with the Outdoor Life Channel/Vs./NBCSN was pretty bad. I think it's evolved and NBC does a good job now, but man, after the NHL left ESPN, their national TV presence was bad, even by NHL standards.

Let's not forget the abomination that was their pitch "tracker". Someone should have been fired early on in the postseason for that.

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Not a per se league but the Fox/U.S. Open pairing is awful.

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Soccer 1,2,3
Spanish Honor Society 1,2,3,4
Forensics 1,2,3,4

"Smiles with Nostrils"

"...no Hmong, go find some blacks"

At least they were smart enough to shitcan Greg Norman.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

That was the worst, but the NHL brought a lot of that on themselves by shutting their league down for a year. They couldn't have stayed at ESPN, though; Mark Shapiro (the genius behind those terrible made-for-TV biopics and reality shows) wanted hockey gone.

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Um...although it wasn't booted to ESPN, ABC on ESPN carried Houston/KC this past playoff season...

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Yeah, kinda forgot how bad baseball on TBS is because it's not quite as bad as it was when they started carrying postseason games (Dick Stockton's tour de force featuring Alonzo Ramirez, Adolfo Soriano, and Julio Jorge). Sucks considering the Braves on TBS was such a nice cozy tradition. They still think people care what Cal Ripken has to say about anything. I don't understand at all.

Remember when NBC lost the AFC, baseball a second time, and the NBA (RIP, best theme song), leaving NBC Sports with nothing but Wimbledon and arena football? Bleak times for old Dick Ebersol.

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NBC has the Olympics, so there's that.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

- ESPN's baseball coverage... they waste so much. Their PBP guys - Schulman, Ravech, Sciambi, Fleming, McDonough - all solid guys. But the shit they put around them for analysts and field reporters! And they do the same thing with Baseball Tonight - good hosts (Ravech, Sciambi, Virk) and absolute crap for analysts (Manny Fucking Acta??) except for Doug Glanville. Throw in way too many Yankees and Red Sox games... and I end up passing most of the time and watching games with my $109 MLB.TV subscription. I'll listen to an east coast game start at 6:10 when I leave the office, get three innings on my drive home, and watch the rest on TV.
- Turner's baseball coverage team, including producers, cameramen, sound guys, researchers, should be taken out to throw the first pitch at a game, then ambushed and set on fire for America (either the poster, the musical act, or the nation) to cheer.
- All football pre-game shows suck. The only post-game show I like is MNF, because it still evokes Stuart Scott even after his death. Levy and Buccigross on the field, Suzy and Steve having cogent thoughts... that's enough to outweigh Ray being an idiot and Trent geeking out about some quarterback's touch on the deep ball.
- The NFL on CBS doesn't do a damn thing for me. Don't like the pregame, don't like the announcing crews, don't like any AFC teams except I'd be happy if the Raiders could ever be good again but they won't. Meanwhile, I'll watch at least a quarter of pretty much any SNF; even though I realize that Al Michaels is a pompous ass who is an LA Kings fan, he can call a football game.
- I only watch college sports if Brent is looking live and making gambling references and wisecracks about the coeds.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Haha, Manny Acta was the Matt Murton of managers.

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MLB on Fox is bad. For the past 5 years or so, I don't even know what time the game is going to be on. They used to carry the noon Saturday game exclusively. Now sometimes it's a 3:30 game, sometimes there isn't a game.

CBS was better w/ Football when they had the NFC & Madden.

It would have been interesting if the NFC on CBS/AFC on NBC partnerships held indefinitely. Those went back to the '60s with the AFL on NBC and the Heidi Game. I'm guessing if CBS hadn't bet the farm on baseball and lost, they'd have kept the NFC and Fox would have taken the AFC. It would have been a better fit, honestly, thinking about the whole vestigial AFL thing.

I believe Jerry Jones had a big part in brokering the 1994 NFL contracts, just as he did in bringing the Rams back to Los Angeles.

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Fox and baseball. They screwed that thing up the moment they started adding fake sounds to the broadcasts and highlights.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Is any network good at anything?

TNT does the NBA very well.

I think NBC's NFL broadcast is solid.

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Yea, its just one of those subjects where its 90% "This sucks"

I think MLB Network is good with games. But I'm probably in the minority in liking Costas.

I think playoff games with Buck on Fox are ok. The weekly ones with B and C announcing teams are awful.

ESPN is awesome with college sports.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!