MLB steps to plate
Pro baseball plans cable channel launch
Full-fledged development of the network, to be called the Baseball Channel, will begin immediately after Thursday's decision by team owners to give the go-ahead.
Tim Brosnan, executive VP of MLB and the exec in charge of the Baseball Channel, said his plan is to launch the network at some time in 2005. He declined to reveal the dollar figure that owners have allocated to get the network up and running. Ambitious new networks can easily use up anywhere from $70 million to $100 million before they write their first dollar of profit into the ledgers.
The network, which will be advertiser supported, may not carry regular-season games during the first year because of rights issues, Brosnan said. ESPN's contract with MLB runs through the 2005 season, and the Fox Network's deal goes through 2006. The teams also have carriage contracts in local markets with regional sports networks and, in some cases, with TV stations. A few, like the New York Yankees, own their own regional cable channel.
But running regular-season games is not the be all and end all, Brosnan said. He said the network could sign contracts for games from spring training, the Triple A minor leagues in the U.S., Mexican League, Caribbean League and even Korean and Japanese professional contests.
While NBA TV, which reaches 10 million digital subscribers, schedules four live games during the regular season, the NFL Network restricts itself to preseason games and European League contests.
Brosnan said he'll be flexible in his negotiations over carriage with cable operators and satellite distributors. He said he's not inclined to emulate the NFL Network in refusing to allow cable systems to place the Baseball Channel on digital sports tiers.
NBA TV permits tiering, even though sports tiers sometimes reach only a small percentage of a cable system's digital customers, diminishing the chance of the network pulling in much money from advertisers during the first few years of operation.
Brosnan said the channel will schedule lots of classic games, drawing on an archive of more than 100,000 hours of footage.
He also plans to commission large volumes of original programs, from discussion shows and coach interviews to documentaries and reality series.
