Fox Major League Baseball
Fox Major League Baseball (shortened to Fox MLB and also known as Major League Baseball on Fox, MLB on Fox, or MLB on FS1) is the branding used for broadcasts of Major League Baseball (MLB) games produced by Fox Sports, the sports division of the Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox). The first MLB games broadcast by Fox Sports began airing on the Fox network on June 1, 1996. Under its current contract with the league, Fox Sports will continue to carry Major League Baseball telecasts through at least 2021, with national broadcasts on Fox and cable sports network Fox Sports 1.
Business history
1996–2000
On November 7, 1995, Major League Baseball reached a television deal with Fox and NBC, allowing the former to obtain MLB game rights (assuming ABC's end of the contract). Fox paid US$575 million for the five-year contract, a fraction less of the amount of money that CBS had paid for the Major League Baseball television rights for the 1990–1993 seasons.
Unlike the previous television deal, "The Baseball Network" (a partnership created through the league's joint contract with ABC and NBC that began in the 1994 season), Fox reverted to the format of televising regular season games (approximately 16 weekly telecasts that normally began on Memorial Day weekend) on Saturday afternoons. Fox did, however, continue a format that The Baseball Network started by offering a selection of games based purely on a viewer's region. Fox's approach has usually been to offer three regionalized telecasts. The initial deal also gave Fox the rights to broadcast the 1996, 1998 and 2000 World Series, the 1997 and 1999 All-Star Games, as well as coverage of the League Championship Series (shared with NBC) and five Division Series games each year.
