''Thursday Night Baseball'' is the de facto branding used for live game telecasts of
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
on Thursday nights.
History
''USA Network Thursday Night Baseball'' (1979–1983)
From 1979 to 1983, the
USA Network
USA Network (simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Television and Streaming division of Comcast's NBCUniversal through NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment. It was originally launched in 1977 as Madison ...
broadcast Major League Baseball games under the ''
Thursday Game of the Week'' banner.
The series began April 26, 1979 with a
doubleheader:
Cleveland
Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...
at
Kansas City
The Kansas City metropolitan area is a bi-state metropolitan area anchored by Kansas City, Missouri. Its 14 counties straddle the border between the U.S. states of Missouri (9 counties) and Kansas (5 counties). With and a population of more ...
(
Jim Woods
James McCarthy Woods (October 22, 1916 – February 20, 1988) was an American sportscaster, best known for his play-by-play work on Major League Baseball broadcasts.
Biography
Early life
Woods was born in Kansas City, Missouri. When only f ...
/
Bud Harrelson
Derrel McKinley "Bud" Harrelson (born June 6, 1944) is a former Major League Baseball shortstop. He is a coach and part-owner of the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. He played for the New York Mets, Philadelphia ...
) followed by
Baltimore
Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
at
California
California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
(
Monte Moore
Monte Moore (born 1930) is an American former radio and television broadcaster for the Kansas City Athletics and Oakland Athletics baseball teams.
Voice of the Athletics
An Oklahoma native, with a folksy, down-home style, Moore became the lea ...
/
Maury Wills
Maurice Morning Wills (October 2, 1932 – September 19, 2022) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) primarily for the Los Angeles Dodgers from 1959 through 1966 and the latter part of ...
). The second game of the night was typically, based out of the
West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
. The games were usually
blacked out of the competing teams' cities. Once in a while, when USA did a repeat of the telecast late at night, local cities were allowed to show the rerun.
From 1980 to 1981, Woods and
Nelson Briles
Nelson Kelley Briles (August 5, 1943 – February 13, 2005) was a Major League Baseball pitcher. A hard thrower whose best pitch was a slider, he exhibited excellent control. Briles batted and threw right-handed. He was a starting pitcher on World ...
(replacing Harrelson) did the early games (except for a game at
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
on October 2, 1980, which reunited Woods with onetime
Boston Red Sox
The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...
radio partner
Ned Martin
Edwin Martin III (August 9, 1923 – July 23, 2002) was an American sportscaster, known primarily as a play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox from 1961 to 1992.
Broadcasting career
Martin was born in Wayne, Pennsylvani ...
), while Moore and
Wes Parker
Maurice Wesley Parker III (born November 13, 1939) is a former first baseman in Major League Baseball who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers from to . He also played one season in Japan for the Nankai Hawks in .
As of 2009, Parker has been a me ...
(replacing Wills) called the late game.
In 1982,
doubleheaders did not start until June 17. Prior to the doubleheaders starting, Moore and Parker did the individual game until then. When the doubleheaders finally began, Moore and Parker moved over to the late game for the rest of the year. Meanwhile,
Eddie Doucette Eddie Doucette (born June 15, 1940) is a former television and radio sportscaster and currently the president of Doucette Promotions Inc.
Doucette was the original radio play-by-play voice of the Milwaukee Bucks, where he broadcast games for 16 ye ...
(replacing Jim Woods) and Nelson Briles were assigned to call the early game.
USA continued with the plan of not starting doubleheaders until June in the final year of the package in 1983. Steve Zabriskie and
Al Albert filled in for Eddie Doucette in September 1982 (Steve Grad also occasionally substituted) while Albert replaced Doucette for a game or more in 1983.
''ABC's Thursday Night Baseball'' (1989)
In 1989, the
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
network aired Thursday night Major League Baseball games after having broadcast ''
Monday Night Baseball
''Monday Night Baseball'' was a live game telecast of Major League Baseball that aired on Monday nights during the regular season.
These games formerly aired weekly on ESPN. The game started at 7 p.m. ET, following ''SportsCenter'', and usually l ...
'' (and occasional Sunday afternoon games) since 1976. This was ABC's final year of consecutive baseball coverage (teaming with
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
, which had telecast
Saturday afternoon games since 1966 and Major League Baseball in general since 1947) due to
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainmen ...
signing a four-year contract (spanning from 1990 to 1993) to become the exclusive national broadcast network provider for Major League Baseball games.
Al Michaels
Alan Richard Michaels (born November 12, 1944) is an American television sportscaster currently working as the play-by-play announcer for ''Thursday Night Football'' on Prime Video and in an emeritus role for NBC Sports. He has worked on netwo ...
,
Jim Palmer
James Alvin Palmer (born October 15, 1945) is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 19 years in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Baltimore Orioles (1965–1967, 1969–1984). Palmer was the winningest MLB pitcher in the ...
, and
Tim McCarver
James Timothy McCarver (born October 16, 1941) is an American former professional baseball player and television sports commentator. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher from to , most prominently as a member of the St. Louis Cardinal ...
formed ABC's lead broadcast team. Meanwhile,
Gary Thorne
Gary F. Thorne (born June 9, 1948) is an American sportscaster. He was the lead play-by-play announcer for Baltimore Orioles games on MASN from 2007 to 2020. He has also worked for ESPN and ABC, including National Hockey League, Major League ...
was the backup play-by-play man alongside
Joe Morgan
Joe Leonard Morgan (September 19, 1943 – October 11, 2020) was an American professional baseball second baseman who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Houston Colt .45s / Astros, Cincinnati Reds, San Francisco Giants, ...
(who had worked with
Gary Bender
Gary Nedrow Bender (born September 1, 1940) is a retired American sportscaster and 2008 inductee into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame. He officially retired, April 13, 2011, from Fox Sports Arizona after 18 years calling the NBA's Phoenix Suns g ...
the previous season) on color commentary.
Rumors of Thursday night games on CBS
In 1990, CBS replaced ABC and NBC as the broadcast network television home of Major League Baseball. But before the previous television contract (which ran from to ) with Major League Baseball was signed, CBS was at one point, interested in a pact which would have called for three
interleague
Interleague play in Major League Baseball refers to regular-season baseball games played between an American League (AL) team and a National League (NL) team. Interleague play was first introduced during the 1997 Major League Baseball season. Pri ...
games airing only on Thursday nights during the season. The proposed deal with CBS involved respectively
American League East
The American League East is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions. MLB consists of an East, Central, and West division for each of its two 15-team leagues, the American League (AL) and National League (NL). This division was created before ...
teams playing the
National League East
The National League East is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions. Along with the American League Central it is one of two divisions to have every member win at least one World Series title.
The division was created when the National Leag ...
, and the
American League West
The American League West is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions. The division has five teams as of the 2013 season, but had four teams from 1994 to 2012, and had as many as seven teams before the 1994 realignment. Although its teams curr ...
playing the
National League West
The National League West is one of Major League Baseball's six divisions. This division was formed for the 1969 season when the National League expanded to 12 teams by adding the San Diego Padres and the Montreal Expos. For purpose of keeping a re ...
.
In October , when it was a known fact that ABC and NBC were going to end their television deal/joint venture with Major League Baseball, preliminary talks arose about CBS resuming its role as the league's national over-the-air broadcaster. It was rumored that CBS would show Thursday night games (more specifically, a package of
West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
inter-league games scheduled for the 11:30 p.m. Eastern/8:30 Pacific Time slot) while Fox would show Saturday afternoon games. CBS and Fox were also rumored to share rights to the postseason. In the end however, CBS' involvement did not come to pass and NBC became Fox's over-the-air national television partner. Whereas each team earned about $14 million in 1990 under CBS, the later television agreement with NBC and Fox beginning in 1996 earned each team about $6.8 million.
Fox Sports Net and Fox Family's coverage (1997–2001)
In 1997, as part of the contract with Major League Baseball it had signed the year before,
Fox Sports
Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world.
The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...
gained an additional outlet for its coverage. Its recently launched network of cable
regional sports network
In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region.
...
s,
Fox Sports Net
Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Mar ...
, was given rights to two Thursday night games per week, one for the Eastern and Central time zones and one for the Mountain and Pacific time zones.
In 2000, as part of an exclusive contract Fox signed with MLB, that coverage passed to
Fox Family Channel
The American cable and satellite television network that is now known as Freeform was originally launched as the CBN Satellite Service on April 29, 1977, and has gone through several different owners (and six different name changes) during its hi ...
and was reduced to one game per week. After the 2000 season, Fox also gained rights to the entire postseason and moved a large portion of its Division Series coverage to Fox Family. This lasted for one season due to
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
acquiring Fox Family. As part of the transaction, Fox Family was renamed
ABC Family
The American cable television, cable and satellite television network that is now known as Freeform (TV channel), Freeform was originally launched as the CBN Satellite Service on April 29, 1977, and has gone through several different owners (and s ...
and
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
gained the rights to Fox Family and FX's MLB coverage, although the 2002 Division Series aired on ABC Family due to contractual issues, but with ESPN production, a sign of things to come at
ABC Sports
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
. Control of the overall contract remained with Fox, meaning they could renegotiate following the 2006 season and not allow ESPN to retain its postseason coverage. For the 2007 season, Fox did exactly that, and
TBS became the other home of the postseason as part of its
new baseball contract.
Play-by-play announcers for the FSN/Fox Family coverage included
Kenny Albert
Kenneth Gary Albert (born February 2, 1968) is an American sportscaster, the son of NBA sportscaster Marv Albert and nephew of sportscasters Al Albert and Steve Albert. He is the only sportscaster who currently does play-by-play for all four ma ...
,
Thom Brennaman
Thomas Wade Brennaman (born September 12, 1963) is an American television sportscaster. He is the son of former Cincinnati Reds radio sportscaster Marty Brennaman.
Broadcasting career
After graduating in 1982 from Cincinnati's Anderson High Sch ...
,
Chip Caray
Harry Christopher "Chip" Caray III (born February 27, 1965) is an American television broadcaster for Bally Sports South and Bally Sports Southeast's coverage of the Atlanta Braves baseball. Chip is also known from his time as a broadcaster for ...
,
Josh Lewin
Josh Lewin is an American sportscaster who works as a play-by-play announcer for the UCLA Bruins football and basketball teams.
Early life and career
Lewin is originally from Rochester, New York, but lived outside of Boston for several years ...
, and
Steve Physioc
Steve Physioc () is a retired American sportscaster who has called play-by-play for various baseball, basketball, and football teams. He retired while working with the Kansas City Royals, who he had worked with since February of 2012.
Early life ...
. Color analysts included
Bob Brenly
Robert Earl Brenly (born February 25, 1954) is an American baseball sportscaster and a former professional baseball player, coach and manager. He played the majority of his Major League Baseball career as a catcher with the San Francisco Gian ...
,
Kevin Kennedy,
Steve Lyons, and
Jeff Torborg
Jeffrey Allen Torborg (born November 26, 1941) is an American former catcher and manager in Major League Baseball. Torborg was signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers as an amateur free agent in 1963. On September 9, 1965, Torborg caught Sandy Koufax' ...
. Occasionally, FSN would
simulcast
Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...
a local-team feed of a game from one of its affiliated RSNs in lieu of a dedicated national production.
''ESPN Thursday Night Baseball'' (consistently: 2003–2006) (select games: 1996, 2002, 2011-2012, 2015, 2017-present)
''ESPN Thursday Night Baseball'' aired on either
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
or
ESPN2
ESPN2 is an American multinational pay television network owned by ESPN Inc., a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (which owns a controlling 80% stake) and Hearst Communications (which owns the remaining 20%).
ESPN2 was initially fo ...
from 2003 to 2006 and featured one game per week, taking over the package that had been on Fox Family Channel.
Castrol
Castrol is a British oil company that markets industrial and automotive lubricants, offering a wide range of oil, greases and similar products for most lubrication applications. The name ''Castrol'' was originally just the brand name for com ...
served as the presenting sponsor for the telecasts.
The play-by-play commentator was
Chris Berman
Christopher James Berman (born May 10, 1955), nicknamed "Boomer", is an American sportscaster. He has been an anchor for '' SportsCenter'' on ESPN since 1979, joining a month after its initial launch, and hosted the network's '' Sunday NFL Coun ...
along with either
Joe Morgan
Joe Leonard Morgan (September 19, 1943 – October 11, 2020) was an American professional baseball second baseman who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Houston Colt .45s / Astros, Cincinnati Reds, San Francisco Giants, ...
or
Eric Karros
Eric Peter Karros (born November 4, 1967) is an American former professional baseball first baseman. Karros played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1991 to 2004 for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and Oakland Athletics. He was the Nati ...
as color commentator. In 2006,
Duke Castiglione
Joseph "Duke" Castiglione Jr. (born June 21, 1973) is an American news anchor for WCVB-TV Boston’s ''NewsCenter 5'' weekend newscasts. He was the sports journalist, Sports Anchor for WNYW Fox 5 Good Day New York in New York City.Best, Neil (June ...
joined the broadcast as the field reporter.
''ESPN Thursday Night Baseball'' was officially discontinued after the 2006 season because the broadcast rights to the package were lost to
TBS. TBS showed the games on Sunday afternoons that
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
previously aired on Thursday nights. ''Thursday Night Baseball'' was replaced with ''
MLS Primetime Thursday
''MLS Primetime Thursday'' was the weekly presentation of Major League Soccer games on ESPN2 for the 2007 and 2008 seasons. The program was presented by Adidas.
History
ESPN and MLS had previously had a contract where ESPN2 televised live games, ...
''.
Even though ''Thursday Night Baseball'' was officially discontinued after the 2006 season, ESPN has still aired select games on Thursday nights. This occurred in 2011, 2012, 2015, and every year since 2017, when Opening Day of the MLB season was moved to Thursdays, as an evening game on Opening Day remains part of ESPN's baseball contract.
''MLB Network Showcase'' (2009-present)
On April 9, 2009,
MLB Network
The MLB Network is an American television sports channel dedicated to baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball, with Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit, Comcast's NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications, and Cox Com ...
aired its first ever self-produced live baseball telecast. The network typically produces 26 non-exclusive live games a year during the regular season; since one or both teams'
local TV rights holders also carry the games, the MLB Network feed is subject to
local blackouts. In that event, the cities in the blacked-out markets will instead see a
simulcast
Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simultane ...
of another scheduled game via one team's local TV rights holder.
For the shortened
2020 season, MLB Network aired 8 games on Thursday nights, mostly simulcasts of
regional sports networks
In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region.
...
.
''Fox Sports Thursday Night Baseball'' (2014–present)
Fox (2019-present)
For the
2019 season,
Fox Sports
Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world.
The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...
announced that they would air two games on Thursday nights in September. Four Thursday night games were aired on Fox in a regionalized form, with the
Atlanta Braves
The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. The Braves ...
vs. the
Philadelphia Phillies
The Philadelphia Phillies are an American professional baseball team based in Philadelphia. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. Since 2004, the team's home sta ...
and the
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...
vs. the
Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles are an American professional baseball team based in Baltimore. The Orioles compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East division. As one of the American L ...
airing September 12 at 7:15. The following week, the
St. Louis Cardinals
The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals hav ...
vs. the
Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...
and the
Detroit Tigers
The Detroit Tigers are an American professional baseball team based in Detroit. The Tigers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the American League (AL) Central division. One of the AL's eight charter franchises, the club was f ...
vs. the
Cleveland Indians
The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive F ...
were aired. The primary games were called by
Joe Davis
Joseph Davis (15 April 190110 July 1978) was an English professional snooker and English billiards player. He was the dominant figure in snooker from the 1920s to the 1950s, and has been credited with inventing aspects of the way the game i ...
,
John Smoltz
John Andrew Smoltz (born May 15, 1967), nicknamed "Smoltzie" and "Marmaduke", is an American former baseball pitcher who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball from 1988 to 2009, all but the last year with the Atlanta Braves. An eight-time A ...
, and
Ken Rosenthal
Ken Rosenthal (born September 19, 1962) is an American sportswriter and reporter. He serves as a field reporter for ''Fox Major League Baseball'' since 2005, and was an in-studio reporter for MLB Network from 2009 to 2022. Since August 2017, h ...
, while the secondary games were called by
Kenny Albert
Kenneth Gary Albert (born February 2, 1968) is an American sportscaster, the son of NBA sportscaster Marv Albert and nephew of sportscasters Al Albert and Steve Albert. He is the only sportscaster who currently does play-by-play for all four ma ...
,
A. J. Pierzynski
Anthony John Pierzynski (; born December 30, 1976) is an American former professional baseball catcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Minnesota Twins (1998–2003), San Francisco Giants (2004), Chicago White Sox (2005–2012) ...
, and
Jon Morosi
Jon Paul Morosi (born May 17, 1982) is an American sportswriter and reporter. Since 2016 he is an on-air personality with MLB Network, including the flagship studio show '' MLB Tonight''. Morosi is also a columnist for MLB.com, as well as an on ...
in 2019.
With the
2020 season being abbreviated to just 60 games due to the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...
, Fox announced that they would broadcast at least four games on Thursday nights beginning on July 30 and continuing through the month of August. Fox aired three weekends of Thursday night games in 2020, with July 30 and August 6 being regionalized, while August 13 was a national broadcast for the whole country. Fox was supposed to air another week of regional games on August 27, but they were postponed in the wake of player protest after the police shooting of
Jacob Blake
On August 23, 2020, Jacob S. Blake, a 29-year-old black man, was shot and seriously injured by police officer Rusten Sheskey in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Sheskey shot Blake in the back four times and the side three times after Blake opened the driv ...
in
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Kenosha () is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the seat of Kenosha County. Per the 2020 census, the population was 99,986 which made it the fourth-largest city in Wisconsin. Situated on the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan, Kenos ...
(and instead those games got rescheduled to Saturday which aired as part of the
Baseball Night in America
''Baseball Night in America'' is an American television presentation of Major League Baseball (MLB) games produced by Fox Sports (United States), Fox Sports for the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox network.
Fox's coverage includes 17 weeks worth of ...
package)
For the
2021 season, Fox only aired one Thursday night game. The "
Field of Dreams Game
MLB at Field of Dreams is a recurring Major League Baseball (MLB) regular-season game played in a ballpark adjacent to Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa, a site popularized by the 1989 baseball film ''Field of Dreams''. The first edition of the ...
" between the
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Amer ...
and the
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The White Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. The team is owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, and p ...
.
For the
2022 season, Fox aired three weeks of Thursday night games, The first aired was the Field of Dreams game on August 11, then it aired games in 2 weeks of September (to avoid College Football).
FS1
Fox Sports 1 (FS1) is an American pay television television channel, channel owned by the Fox Sports (United States), Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of Fox Corporation. FS1 replaced the motorsports network Speed (TV network), Speed on August 1 ...
(2014–present)
While not weekly FS1 has aired baseball on Thursday nights occasionally since 2014. One game was aired on Thursdays in 2014 and 2015, two games in 2016, one game in 2017 and two games in 2018, three games were aired in 2020 and three games in 2022. FS1 usually airs baseball games on Saturdays.
=Schedule
=
Notes
YouTube (2019-present)
Since 2019,
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
has aired a select amount of Major League Baseball games. These games are produced by
MLB Network
The MLB Network is an American television sports channel dedicated to baseball. It is primarily owned by Major League Baseball, with Warner Bros. Discovery through its sports unit, Comcast's NBC Sports Group, Charter Communications, and Cox Com ...
but are available exclusively through the MLB YouTube channel. While most games stream on Wednesday afternoons, some games have streamed on Thursdays.
References
External links
Searchable Network TV Broadcasts
{{Major League Baseball on USA
ABC Sports
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1989 American television series debuts
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1990s American television series
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