Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio
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| Genre | Major League Baseball |
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| Running time | 3 hours (approximate) |
| Country |  USA |
| Home station | ESPN Radio (1998-) |
| Starring | Jon Sciambi Chris Singleton Marc Kestecher |
| Air dates | since March 31, 1998 |
Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio is the brand name for exclusive play-by-play broadcast presentation of Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio. The coverage has most recently been presented by AutoZone; previous presenting sponsors included Xerox, Excedrin, and the United States Postal Service.
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[edit] Coverage overview
In 1998, ESPN Radio took over from CBS Radio as the official, national radio broadcaster for Major League Baseball. The network's current contract runs through the 2010 season. As of 2006, Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio is heard on over 321 stations across the United States.
The games include Opening Day, Sunday Night Baseball, Saturday Game of the Week, holiday games and September pennant race games. ESPN Radio holds exclusive radio rights to the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby. The postseason (including the Division Series, League Championship Series and World Series) is a semi-exclusive arrangement. The participating teams' flagship stations are allowed to air play-by-play using their own announcers and production. The national ESPN Radio feed may, however, be carried live on another station in those markets as well. If affiliate stations on the teams' radio networks wish to carry coverage of postseason games they must use the national feed. Since the inaugural World Baseball Classic in March 2006, the semi-finals and the championship have also been broadcast as part of Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio.
In addition to affiliate stations on AM/FM radio, ESPN Radio's game broadcasts are carried as part of XM Satellite Radio's MLB coverage. However, they are not included in the subscription "Gameday Audio" package on MLB.com with the exception of the All-Star Game, for which no other radio play-by-play feed is available.
As of June 2011, the games can also be heard online at ESPN Radio.com and via ESPN Radio mobile applications. Previously, rights restrictions prevented ESPN Radio.com or other ESPN/Disney online ventures (such as DGamer) from live-streaming the games. While the games are sometimes unavailable on the ESPN Radio iPod Touch/iPhone app (due to blackout and/or contractual restrictions[1]), they can be heard on the app via the included affiliate stations.
[edit] History
In 1997, ESPN Radio outbid CBS Radio to become the exclusive national radio broadcaster of Major League Baseball beginning the following year. CBS Radio had been the national radio broadcaster since 1976.
The agreement lasted seven years through 2004 and gave ESPN Radio the rights to broadcast numerous games including Sunday Night Baseball, Saturday Game of the Week, Opening Day and holiday games, September weekday pennant race games, the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby, and all of the playoffs, including the World Series.
In 2004, ESPN Radio extended the deal with a five year, $55 million dollar contract extension through the 2010 season.
The agreement also added a weekly program devoted to baseball, which became The Baseball Show from 3 p.m. ET to 7 p.m. ET on Sundays during the regular season. The program was hosted by John Seibel and Steve Phillips.
[edit] Broadcasters
As of 2011, the primary ESPN Radio crew for Sunday Night Baseball consists of play-by-play announcer Jon Sciambi and color analyst Chris Singleton. In 2010 Sciambi succeeded Gary Thorne, who had called play-by-play in 2008-09; Thorne had succeeded Dan Shulman, did so from 2002-07; Shulman, in turn, had been preceded by Charley Steiner from 1998-2002. Singleton succeeds Dave Campbell, who was an analyst from 1999-2010. Campbell replaced Kevin Kennedy as analyst in 1999, after the latter had worked with Steiner in the network's inaugural season of coverage. Marc Kestecher currently serves as the primary Baseball Tonight studio host; he was preceded by Joe D'Ambrosio from 1998-2007.
Through 2010, the network's broadcast team for the World Series was Jon Miller on play-by-play and Hall of Famer Joe Morgan on game analysis for every year of ESPN Radio's coverage except for 1999, when Morgan called the games for NBC. (Miller and Morgan, the Sunday Night Baseball crew for ESPN television during the regular season, were dismissed by the network following the 2010 Series.) During all of the games there is also the ESPN Radio SportsCenter every twenty minutes with live cut-ins during the games.
Miller and Morgan also typically called the ALCS each year through 2010, while Shulman and Campbell called the NLCS and Sciambi and Campbell handled the All-Star Game. Various other announcers work the network's secondary regular-season and Division Series broadcasts as needed.
[edit] See also
- ESPN Major League Baseball
- Baseball Tonight
- Sunday Night Baseball
- Monday Night Baseball
- Wednesday Night Baseball
- ESPN Major League Baseball broadcasters
- Major League Baseball on ESPN Radio broadcasters
- Major League Baseball Game of the Week
- The Baseball Show
- List of Major League Baseball All-Star Game broadcasters
- List of American League Division Series broadcasters
- List of National League Division Series broadcasters
- List of American League Championship Series broadcasters
- List of National League Championship Series broadcasters
- List of World Series broadcasters
[edit] References
- Press Release: ESPN RADIO AND MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL EXTEND AGREEMENT THROUGH 2010
- Press Release: MLB Post-Season: Every Game on ESPN Radio
