USA Network USA Network (or simply USA) is an American basic cable television channel owned by the NBCUniversal Media Group division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It was launched in 1977 as Madison Square Garden Sports Network, one of the first national sports ...

was the first network to consistently air

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

games on Thursday night with USA Network Thursday Night Baseball from 1979 to 1983. Thursday night baseball games returned in 1989 with the move of ABC's games in the networks' final season of coverage until 2020.

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

has aired games on Thursday nights since 2003. ESPN aired weekly Thursday Night games from 2003 to 2006 and has aired a limited amount of games, including an exclusive

Opening Day Opening Day is the day on which professional baseball leagues begin their regular season. For Major League Baseball (MLB) and most of the American minor leagues, this day typically falls during the first week of April, although in recent year ...

game since 2017, after 2006.

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The name originates from Fox Broadcasting Company in the United States, which in turn derives its name from Fox Fi ...

has aired games on Thursday nights in two different iterations. First from 1997 to 2001 on Fox Sports Network and Fox Family, and since 2014 on

Fox Sports 1 Fox Sports 1 (branded on-air as FS1) is an American pay television television channel, channel owned by the Fox Sports (United States), Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of Fox Corporation. FS1 airs an array of live sporting events, including Majo ...

and Fox. Fox has aired a limited about of

Baseball Night in America ''Baseball Night in America'' is an American television presentation of Major League Baseball (MLB) games produced by Fox Sports for the Fox network on Thursday or Saturday nights. Fox's coverage includes 24 weeks worth of coverage as of 2024 ...

games on Thursday nights since 2019.

History

''USA Network Thursday Night Baseball'' (1979–1983)

From 1979 to 1983, the

broadcast Major League Baseball games on Thursday nights. The series began April 26, 1979 with a doubleheader:

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

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 t ...

( Jim Woods/ Bud Harrelson) followed by

Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

( Monte Moore/

Maury Wills Maurice Morning Wills (October 2, 1932 – September 19, 2022) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop from 1959 to 1972, most prominently as an integral member of the Los Ange ...

). The second game of the night was typically, based out of the West Coast. The games were usually blacked out 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 is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

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) American League East, East Division. Founded in as one of the Ameri ...

radio partner Ned Martin), 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 Eddie Doucette (born June 15, 1940) is a former television and radio sportscaster and currently the president of Doucette Promotions Inc. Doucette was the original radio play-by-play voice of the Milwaukee Bucks, where he broadcast games for 16 ...

(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 ''Monday Night Baseball'' is an American live game telecast of Major League Baseball (MLB) that aired on Monday nights during the regular season. Earlier incarnations of ''Monday Night Baseball'' aired on NBC and then ABC in the 1970s and 1980 ...

'' (and occasional Sunday afternoon games) since 1976. This was ABC's final year of consecutive baseball coverage (alongside

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

, 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 play-by-play sportscaster for '' Thursday Night Football'' on Amazon Prime Video and in an emeritus role for NBC Sports. He has worked on network sports television sin ...

Jim Palmer James Alvin Palmer (born October 15, 1945) is an American former professional baseball pitcher who played 19 years in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Baltimore Orioles (1965–1967, 1969–1984). Palmer was the winningest MLB pitcher in the ...

, and

Tim McCarver James Timothy McCarver (October 16, 1941 – February 16, 2023) was an American professional baseball catcher, television sports commentator, and singer. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1959 to 1980 for four teams, spending almost ...

formed ABC's lead broadcast team, while

Gary Thorne Gary Francis 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 Le ...

and

Joe Morgan Joe Leonard Morgan (September 19, 1943 – October 11, 2020) was an American professional baseball second baseman who played 22 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Houston Astros, Houston Colt .45s / Astros, Cincinnati Reds, San Fran ...

were the second team.

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,

gained an additional outlet for its coverage. Its recently launched network of cable

regional sports network A regional sports network (RSN) in the United States and Canada is a television channel that presents sports programming to a local media market or geographical region. Such channels often focus on one or a few teams who currently play in Major L ...

Fox Sports Net Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by the Walt Disney Company on Mar ...

, 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 referred to as simply Disney, is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was founded on October 16 ...

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

ABC Family American cable television, cable and satellite television network Freeform (TV channel), Freeform was originally launched as the CBN Satellite Service on April 29, 1977, and has gone through four different owners and six different name changes dur ...

and

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 ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial America ...

. 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, Chip Caray,

Josh Lewin Josh Lewin (born ) is an American sportscaster who works as a play-by-play announcer for the UCLA Bruins football and basketball teams. Early life and education Lewin was born and raised in Rochester, New York. He attended Brighton High Scho ...

, and Steve Physioc. Color analysts included Bob Brenly, Kevin Kennedy, Steve Lyons, and

Jeff Torborg Jeffrey Allen Torborg (November 26, 1941 – January 19, 2025) was an American professional baseball catcher and manager. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Los Angeles Dodgers and California Angels from 1964 to 1973. He managed th ...

. Occasionally, FSN would

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of "simultaneous broadcast") is the broadcasting of 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, simultaneously) ...

a local-team feed of a game from one of its affiliated RSNs in lieu of a dedicated national production.

''ESPN Thursday Night Baseball'' (2003–2006)

''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 ...

from 2003 to 2006 and featured one game per week, taking over the package that had been on Fox Family Channel. Castrol served as the presenting sponsor for the telecasts. The play-by-play commentator was Chris Berman along with either

or Eric Karros as color commentator. In 2006, Duke Castiglione joined the broadcast as the field reporter. ''ESPN Thursday Night Baseball'' ended after the 2006 season because the broadcast rights to the package were lost to TBS. TBS began a package of Sunday afternoon games as a replacement for ESPN's Thursday night games. That package was moved to Tuesday nights in 2022. Even though ''Thursday Night Baseball'' as a distinct package ended after the 2006 season, ESPN has still aired select games on Thursday nights, most notably 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.

''Baseball Night in America'' (2019–present)

For the 2019 season,

announced that they would air games on two Thursday nights in September. These games were branded as part of Fox's ''

'' package. Four Thursday night games were aired on Fox in a regionalized form, with two each week. 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 John Andrew Smoltz (born May 15, 1967), nicknamed "Smoltzie" and "Marmaduke", is an American former baseball pitcher who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball from 1988 to 2009, all but the last year with the Atlanta Braves. An eight-time Ma ...

, 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 and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, 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 weeks of Thursday night games in 2020, with July 30 and August 6 being regionalized, while August 13 was broadcast to 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 Kenosha () is a city in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Wisconsin, fourth-most populous city in Wisconsin, with a population of 99,986 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. S ...

, and instead those games got rescheduled to Saturday. 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 Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Am ...

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) American League Central, Central Division. The club plays its ...

. Fox returned to regionalized games in the 2022 season. Fox aired three weeks of Thursday night games, including the second

Field of Dreams ''Field of Dreams'' is a 1989 American sports fantasy drama film written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson, and based on Canadian novelist W. P. Kinsella's 1982 novel '' Shoeless Joe''. The film stars Kevin Costner as a farmer who builds a ...

game on August 11. Fox again also aired two weeks of Thursday night games in September in order to allow more Saturday primetime

College Football College football is gridiron football that is played by teams of amateur Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. It was through collegiate competition that gridiron football American football in the United States, firs ...

games to air on the network. Since the 2023 season season, Fox has aired at least three weeks of Thursday night games. At least one game is aired in late August and two games are broadcast in September. In

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

, Fox also aired the MLB at Rickwood Field game on a Thursday night in June.

References

External links

Searchable Network TV Broadcasts
{{Major League Baseball on USA ABC Sports 1979 American television series debuts 1983 American television series endings 1989 American television series debuts 1989 American television series endings 2003 American television series debuts 2003 American television series endings 2019 American television series debuts Major League Baseball on television Major League Baseball on Fox USA Network Sports 1990s American sports television series 2020s American sports television series Fox Sports Networks original programming American Broadcasting Company original programming ESPN original programming ESPN2 original programming Fox Family Channel original programming