![\"CovHlSq\"](\"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/wp-content\/CovHlSq.jpg\" "\\"CovHlSq\\"")
2009 should be remembered with fondness by baseball fans.\u00c2\u00a0 The MLB regular season was full of the usual intrigue, drama, great games and memorable moments and the Fall Classic lived up to expectations, producing the best World Series for a number of years.<\/p>\n
Yet it was a sad and disappointing year for many in Britain as Five, the terrestrial home of MLB since 1997, abandoned the sport and created a big hole in the British baseball way of life.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile ESPN America, the subscription home of MLB, was embroiled in the demise of Setanta Sports.<\/p>\n
It was almost exactly a year ago (21 Dec) that I published an article about the rumours of \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBaseball on Five\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 being cancelled.\u00c2\u00a0 The news was a bad way to start the festive season and left many of us pondering what 2009 would bring.\u00c2\u00a0 Hopes of a reprieve gradually diminished as the season opener drew near and we began to come to terms with the realization that Jonny and Josh wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be with us \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fellow baseball nuts\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for the Braves-Phillies game on 5 April.\u00c2\u00a0 The cause was highlighted in petitions and even in the House of Commons, but Five\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision was final.\u00c2\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Losing the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBaseball on Five\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 show was depressing enough, but what made it even worse was that nothing took its place.\u00c2\u00a0 There were rumours that Five might continue to show MLB games without any studio content, which would have at least kept baseball on terrestrial TV.\u00c2\u00a0 That didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t happen and in some ways it seemed like a good thing because it kept alive the possibility that someone else would pick up the rights during the season.\u00c2\u00a0 Reports that the BBC might be interested always seemed a little too good to be true, but various Freeview digital channels (not least ITV4) appeared to offer a potential home for a unique show with a loyal fan base.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sadly not.\u00c2\u00a0 The regular season passed by with no free-to-air coverage available to Brits and, despite the desperate last-minute inspection of TV listings hoping otherwise, the exciting World Series was overlooked as well.\u00c2\u00a0 The complete lack of free-to-air coverage meant that a whole year of potential new recruits, created by stumbling across the sport, were lost.\u00c2\u00a0 Established fans unable to watch games via any other method may also have drifted away from the community that the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcBaseball on Five\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 show had lovingly fostered.\u00c2\u00a0 The \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcout of sight, out of mind\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 phenomenon can only further reduce the odds of a channel offering MLB a home in 2010.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to write \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcyes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, but that answer wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be backed up with any evidence that a free-to-air channel is going to bring baseball to us in 2010.\u00c2\u00a0 While the initial shock of the financial collapse may have passed, we are still living in a time of financial uncertainty and spending money on broadcasting North American sports in the early hours of the morning doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seem high on anyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wish list, even if investing in such a unique product\u00c2\u00a0could be to a broadcaster’s benefit in the long run.\u00c2\u00a0 Five has brought back their studio-based NFL coverage on a reduced basis of one show a week rather than two.\u00c2\u00a0 As the North American sport with the biggest fan base, that was always the most likely one to earn a reprieve so it doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t immediately suggest a broader change of mind on the part of Five towards baseball.<\/p>\n
MLB International knows as well as anyone that the sport\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s absence from free-to-air TV is a significant barrier to making it accessible to the British public.\u00c2\u00a0 Reports have claimed that NFL virtually gave Five the rights this season to keep it on terrestrial TV and MLB would no doubt do the same if a partner could be found.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether such a partner exists remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
With MLB\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s free-to-air coverage disappearing, the only option left for Brits wanting to watch games on TV was subscribing to ESPN America.\u00c2\u00a0 Formerly known as NASN, ESPN America continued to show a good selection of live games alongside \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcas live\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 repeats and plenty of baseball-related programming from the ESPN network.\u00c2\u00a0 However, in line with the Five fiasco, tuning into the channel wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly plain sailing throughout the year.<\/p>\n
The impending demise of Setanta Sports created plenty of uncertainty around ESPN America during June.\u00c2\u00a0 Of initial concern to subscribers was what would happen to the channel when the inevitable happened and Setanta went into administration.\u00c2\u00a0 That concern was eased as ESPN America became temporarily free-to-view for digital subscribers while media companies surveyed the wreckage and formed plans on potentially acquiring the sports rights vacated by Setanta.\u00c2\u00a0 From the outset, ESPN was seen as the frontrunner to pick up Setanta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Premier League rights and to make their first real foray into the British sports market.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, that prospect just created even more uncertainty. Would ESPN still want to make ESPN America available in the UK if they launched an ESPN channel?\u00c2\u00a0 Would North American sports simply be shoehorned onto a handful of available spots in the schedule, further hacking away at the amount of baseball available to Brits?\u00c2\u00a0 This nightmare scenario was being reported in the press and when it was announced in July that ESPN would be taking over ESPN America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s channel number of 417 on Sky Digital, the fears increased even further.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thankfully, just days before the new ESPN channel was launched on 3 August, it was casually announced that ESPN America would continue to be available as part of an overall ESPN sports subscription package.\u00c2\u00a0 The news was a big relief and has secured the future of MLB being shown on British TV for the foreseeable future.\u00c2\u00a0 ESPN America\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exclusive five-year pan-European MLB rights contract finishes at the end of the 2010 season, but it is hoped that a mutually beneficial deal will be agreed to continue what has been a successful relationship since 2006.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Away from the MLB content, Eurosport2 once again backed baseball by providing a surprisingly significant amount of coverage of the Baseball World Cup during September.\u00c2\u00a0 This included live coverage of a number of Great Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s second round games, several great games staged in the impressive Regensburg ballpark and the tense final games from Italy.\u00c2\u00a0 The channel also showed the final of the European Cup Championship in June, when Danesi Caffe Nettuno defeated Fortitudo Bologna to retain the trophy.<\/p>\n
\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
The baseball coverage available to digital subscribers on ESPN America and Eurosport2 was varied and relatively plentiful, so those with the ability to go down that route had a good amount to enjoy. However, subscribing to these services is not an option for many people and, in any case, the availability of MLB coverage on a free-to-air platform is crucial if baseball is even to maintain its current level of popularity as a minority sport, never mind to reach out to new audiences.\u00c2\u00a0 All us baseball fans can do is to continue to make ourselves heard (online and elsewhere if possible) so that people know there is an audience out there.\u00c2\u00a0 Hopefully someone will listen in 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the second of two articles, we look back at the baseball coverage that was available on British TV in 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[25,83,24,553],"class_list":["post-6324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball-coverage","tag-espn-america","tag-eurosport","tag-five","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6324"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6337,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6324\/revisions\/6337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}