''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 (A ...

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 Madi ...

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 United States, U.S. U.S. state, state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along ...

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 th ...

(

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 fo ...

/ Bud Harrelson) followed by

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

( Monte Moore/ Maury Wills). The second game of the night was typically, based out of the West Coast. The games were usually

blacked out ''Blacked Out'' is a studio album by American country rap duo Moonshine Bandits from California. It was released on July 17, 2015 via Average Joes Entertainment. It features guest appearances from Bubba Sparxxx, Colt Ford, Crucifix, Demun Jone ...

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 (replacing Harrelson) did the early games (except for a game at

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple- ...

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 (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 (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 network aired Thursday night Major League Baseball games after having broadcast '' Monday Night Baseball'' (and occasional Sunday afternoon games) since 1976. This was ABC's final year of consecutive baseball coverage (teaming with NBC, which had telecast Saturday afternoon games since 1966 and Major League Baseball in general since 1947) due to CBS 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 n ...

, Jim Palmer, and Tim McCarver 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 Leagu ...

was the backup play-by-play man alongside Joe Morgan (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 Sun ...

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 games airing only on Thursday nights during the season. The proposed deal with CBS involved respectively American League East 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 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 F ...

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, 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 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 Octobe ...

acquiring Fox Family. As part of the transaction, Fox Family was renamed

ABC Family 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 h ...

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. 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,

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, Josh Lewin, and Steve Physioc. 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. 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, simul ...

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

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 along with either Joe Morgan or Eric Karros as color commentator. In 2006, Duke Castiglione 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

previously aired on Thursday nights. ''Thursday Night Baseball'' was replaced with '' MLS Primetime Thursday''. 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 C ...

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

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,

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) East division. The Braves were founded in ...

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) National League West, West division. Established in 1883 i ...

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) East division. As one of the American League's eight charter ...

airing September 12 at 7:15. The following week, the St. Louis Cardinals 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 locate ...

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) American League Central, Central division. Since , they have ...

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 is ...

, John Smoltz, and Ken Rosenthal, while the secondary games were called by Kenny Albert, A. J. Pierzynski, and Jon Morosi 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 identi ...

, 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 in Kenosha, Wisconsin (and instead those games got rescheduled to Saturday which aired as part of the Baseball Night in America package) For the 2021 season, Fox only aired one Thursday night game. The " Field of Dreams Game" between the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one ...

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 ...

. 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 (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 sharing and 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 Google, and is the second mo ...

has aired a select amount of Major League Baseball games. These games are produced by

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