[21] While NBC would maintain rights to certain games, the growing Fox network (having established its own sports division two years earlier in 1994) became the league's new national broadcast partner beginning in 1996.

The advertisers[51][52] were reportedly excited about the arrangement with The Baseball Network because the new package included several changes intended to boost ratings, especially among younger viewers.

It also stood to benefit the networks because they reduced the risk associated with purchasing the broadcast rights outright (in stark contrast to CBS's disastrous contract with Major League Baseball from the 1990–1993 seasons).

Ueberroth wanted to set up a national cable package for one or two nights a week without undercutting the value of some teams' local television deals.

Greg Gumbel hosted the pre game show;[88] this was one of his first assignments for NBC after having left CBS Sports following that network's coverage of the 1994 College World Series.

[89] Gumbel had also previously served as the secondary play-by-play announcer (behind Sean McDonough) for CBS's baseball coverage, calling the 1993 American League Championship Series along the way with Jim Kaat.

[90] Peoria's NBC station WEEK-TV suffered misfortunes of significant transmitter difficulties throughout most of the 1994 All-Star Game, forcing WEEK's signal to be knocked off the air until one hour after the conclusion.

[92] On the subject of Michaels returning to baseball for the first time since the Loma Prieta earthquake interrupted the 1989 World Series, Jim Palmer said, "Here Al is, having done five games since 1989, and steps right in.

Games involving either of the two Canadian-based MLB teams at the time, the Toronto Blue Jays and Montreal Expos, were not always included in the Baseball Night in America package.

When TSN (which owned the cable rights to the Blue Jays and Expos) covered the games in Canada, they re-broadcast the BNIA feed across their network.

[141] Ken Schanzer, The Baseball Network's president[142] said "We've been given a responsibility to broadcast the games regionally[143] and, within that context, we tried to come up with a plan that makes it as exciting as possible".

The theory was that by inserting highlights, even live action from other games, into the natural lulls, The Baseball Network could produce an exciting, technology-enhanced experience.

This most severely impacted markets with two teams, specifically New York City (Mets[153] and Yankees), to the Greater Los Angeles Area (Dodgers and Angels), Chicago[109] (Cubs and White Sox), the San Francisco Bay Area (Giants and A's), and to a lesser extent, the state of Texas (Houston Astros and Texas Rangers).

McDonough said that this would affect out-of-state viewers, for example if the Red Sox were in the playoffs (which would incidentally, actually happen under the watch of The Baseball Network in 1995), then a Boston native located in Atlanta would have missed the games.

Costas further wrote that the agreement involving the World Series being the only instance of The Baseball Network broadcasting a nationally televised game was an unprecedented surrender of prestige, as well as a slap to all serious fans.

When Costas was preparing call the 1995 American League Division Series between Boston-Cleveland for NBC, he told the New York Times that "It's baseball's objective to market itself nationally, but TBN makes it a local sport."

According to Curt Smith's book, The Voice – Mel Allen's Untold Story, the longtime New York Yankees broadcaster and This Week in Baseball host was quoted as saying "You wonder how anything would be worse [than CBS].

During the 1995 Division Series, the fan frustration with The Baseball Network was so bad that the mere mention of it during the Mariners–Yankees ALDS from public address announcer Tom Hutyler at Seattle's Kingdome brought boos[165] from most of the crowd.

When critiquing The Baseball Network's coverage of the 1995 postseason, Jerry Trecker of the Hartford Courant wrote[169] that the broadcasts suffered from having too many men in the booth, sloppy camera work, and a lack of consistency in graphics.

Trecker did however, point out that times, the broadcasters seemed to be ahead of the production people, especially when they wanted to talk about Raul Mondesi's speed getting to a drive into the right field corner.

Visser in particular, was singled out for asked such lengthy questions of Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Hideo Nomo that it was almost farcical when his answers came back in translation.

[183][184] In addition to the cancellation of that year's World Series,[185][186] ABC was denied its remaining Baseball Night in America telecasts and NBC was shut out of its game broadcast slate (which in 1994, was scheduled to begin on August 26[187]) altogether.

[193] ABC Sports president Dennis Swanson, in announcing the dissolution of The Baseball Network, said:[194] The fact of the matter is, Major League Baseball seems incapable at this point in time, of living with any longterm relationships, whether it's with fans, with players, with the political community in Washington, with the advertising community here in Manhattan, or with its TV partners.Others would argue that a primary reason for its failure was its abandoning of localized markets in favor of more lucrative and stable advertising contracts afforded by turning to a national model of broadcasting, similar to the National Football League's television package, which focuses on localized games, with one or two "national" games.

[196] In October 1995, 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 rose about CBS returning.

Al Michaels, Jim Palmer, Tim McCarver, Lesley Visser, John Saunders...saying goodnight...from Jacobs Field...in Cleveland!Al Michaels would later write in his 2014 autobiography You Can't Make This Up: Miracles, Memories, and the Perfect Marriage of Sports and Television[208] that the competition between the two networks could be so juvenile that neither ABC nor NBC wanted to promote each other's telecasts during the 1995 World Series.

Naturally, Bob Costas soon made a similar reference to ABC's crew (Michaels, Jim Palmer, and Tim McCarver) on NBC.

On July 8, 2011, Al Michaels and Bob Costas teamed up (with the two announcers alternating between play-by-play and color commentary) to call a game between the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants on MLB Network.

[citation needed] On September 28, 2020, it was announced that ABC would carry at least four Wild Card Series games for the expanded 2020 Major League Baseball postseason.

In 1995, Gumbel became the secondary play-by-play announcer for NBC (working with Joe Morgan on the National League Championship Series) behind Bob Costas.

And as you can imagine the celebration begins, down on the natural surface of this ballpark...Back to Georgia!Dave Justice, all is forgiven in Atlanta.Left-center field...Grissom, on the run...the team of the '90s has its World Championship!