The Boston Red Sox-Detroit Tigers game scheduled for tonight was rained out. With this being the only time the Red Sox will play in Motown this season, the Tigers scheduled the makeup game for Sunday night at 7:05 p.m. to make it a day-night separate admission doubleheader as there is an afternoon game at 1:05 p.m. That afternoon game will be aired on TBS, NESN and Fox Sports Detroit.
However, with the nightcap falling in ESPN’s exclusive window for Sunday Night Baseball (5 p.m. — midnight), there will be no local TV. So the only broadcasts of the game will be on radio, led by WEEI in Boston and WXYT in Detroit.
Red Sox fans are angry because they’re used to seeing every game as NESN airs 150 contests with ESPN and Fox picking up the rest.
Usually the Red Sox avoid being blacked out and I have to contact NESN for the last time this occurred.
On Twitter, my timeline is filled with Red Sox fans angry at ESPN, but they paid millions for the exclusivity.
In addition, Detroit could have scheduled a traditional doubleheader, but the Tigers want the concessions and the ticket revenue.
It’s one night, Red Sox and Tigers fans will survive. The sun will come up on Monday and the earth will not fall off its orbital axis because one game is not televised.
Some fans have called for ESPN to relax its rules, but the network wants fans to watch Cincinnati-Atlanta tomorrow night and I can’t blame the network.
I’ve been critical of ESPN, but I can’t kill it for rules that have been in place since 1991.
I’m at a sports bar blogging. Time for me to go back to drinking my beer.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Personally, MLB should've forced the Tigers to play the traditional doubleheader to allow for the game to at least be televised in the Boston area. Interestingly, I remember a circumstance from two years ago when the Rays had the Friday game of a three-game series in September rained out and rescheduled as part of a day-night DH on Sunday and both games were televised (Game 1 started at 12 Noon EST; Game 2 began at 5PM EST). Why the Tigers could not have their DH like that is beyond me (in all honesty, I'm not a fan of the day-night DH).
I didn't realize the ESPN exclusive window started at 5:00. Otherwise, Tigers could probably do a split DH at 12 and 5 p.m.
I wonder why ESPN even allows those Rangers home games to be broadcast locally on Sunday nights. They have some compassion.
In the early days of SNB, the Rangers games would act as backup games in case the ESPN got rained out, but it rarely happened. Then, ESPN would allow the Rangers games to be aired only in home markets and I recall a Phillies makeup game was allowed to be aired in local markets opposite SNB. Why ESPN chose to exercise exclusivity, I\’m not sure. I\’ll put an email out tomorrow.
Boston fans can survive having one game untelevised. I'm a Royals fan and the Royals TV package is 140 games with no guarantee's of national telecasts.