I remembered this arrticle about MLB & ESPN. I think we hooked our trains to the better wagon. To all with the positive comments for me, many thanks. I welcome all feedback, neg or positive. Just can't stand when no one else responds because it makes me think I'm in a vacum. Let's all keep the faith,, and I'll keep blabbing away.
Commentary: Rift between
ESPN and Major League
Baseball was inevitable
BY RICHARD SANDOMIR
N.Y. Times News Service
As ESPN's chief baseball analyst, Joe Morgan is rarely called
upon to analyze the corporate doings of his employer. But that
changed Tuesday when ESPN sued Major League Baseball in
federal court to block baseball's termination of the cable
network's regular-season deal after this season. Baseball has
been irate for 16 months over ESPN's plan to shift three Sunday
night games in September to ESPN2 in favor of National Football
League games.
''I'm very disappointed that they haven't worked this out,''
Morgan said. ''But I can see both sides. Baseball is saying the
NFL is more important, but ESPN is saying it wants to do a good
job for baseball and for the NFL. Since 1990, ESPN has done
more for baseball than anyone.''
Morgan's point is correct. ESPN has stayed with baseball for 10
seasons, while CBS (1989-93), NBC and ABC (1994-95) and
Fox and NBC (1996 until now) have juggled the television
contracts.
Almost four years ago, NBC and ABC stalked out of their
partnership deal with baseball when Major League Baseball
would not extend their package. NBC vowed a pox on baseball,
but negotiated a new contract later that year.
''ESPN has been there every day,'' Morgan said. ''The networks
are there once a week.'' Meanwhile, ESPN carries Sunday night
games, Wednesday night doubleheaders, opening day
tripleheaders, exhibitions like the Cuba-Baltimore Orioles game,
playoffs and the nightly ''Baseball Tonight'' studio program.
However, ESPN did not give baseball warning of its plan to
move three September Sunday night games to ESPN2 if it
acquired a full-season package of NFL games. Of course,
baseball could have read the public tea leaves about ESPN's
desire to add the first half of the NFL season to the second half it
had already carried. But it never confronted ESPN.
ESPN finally told baseball of its plans on Jan. 13, 1998, the day it
acquired the $600-million-a-year NFL package. ESPN's course
was inevitable: impolitic as it was to push an existing partner
around, it favored the higher-rated NFL because it cost 15 times
more for those rights than baseball's.
''We've gone out of our way to apologize to them, but they still
feel offended,'' said Dick Glover, executive vice president of
ESPN.
Baseball seethed, insisting it would not approve moving the three
games to ESPN2 -- which has 64.5 million subscribers, from
ESPN, which has 76.6 million. Besides, baseball said,
early-season NFL games did not fit its definition of ''an event of
significant viewer interest,'' the contractual provision that ESPN
insists justifies replacing baseball with football.
Last September, baseball angrily revoked ESPN's right to carry
the three Sunday night games, causing ESPN to lose one game
involving Mark McGwire.
Then, two weeks ago, baseball terminated its regular-season deal
with ESPN.
Baseball has reason to be steamed, believing its rights should be
considered ahead of football's, despite the NFL's better ratings.
But even if ESPN had told baseball of its plans in advance, this
impasse would have occurred.
One also gets the sense there could be an ulterior motive to
baseball's actions. If baseball can shed the final three years of its
regular-season contract with ESPN, it can seek a better cable
deal from Fox Sports Net or Turner Sports. Baseball officials
have watched as rights for NFL, National Basketball Association
and even National Hockey League games have soared.
Especially eye-opening is the new four-year, $600 million NHL
deal with ABC and ESPN.
If ESPN values the lower-rated hockey so highly, baseball seems
to reason, shouldn't they crave us even more?
So baseball has spurned ESPN's entreaties to settle this mess;
according to ESPN's lawsuit, baseball said it would accept the
shifting of the three September games if ESPN paid what
amounts to a $350 million penalty through 2002.
ESPN tried to woo baseball by augmenting ESPN2's viewership
by putting the games on local stations in the teams' markets;
adding up to eight Tuesday and Friday night games on ESPN
with pennant race implications and producing 6 to 10 two-hour
installments of ''Baseball Tonight'' on ESPN in September.
Those aren't shabby offers, but evidently they are not enough to
erase the insult baseball feels. Yet when so much has gone right
between ESPN and baseball, why threaten that relationship with
a gross overreaction like terminating the contract? |
