There is a new big dog in baseball and they are the Texas Rangers. This past week they inked a brand new TV deal with FOX Sports Southwest that will bring the team an eye-popping $1.6 billion over the next 20 years — giving the Rangers $80 million a year in local broadcast money.
That puts Texas in the rare air of competing with the Yankees and the Red Sox in the American League and perhaps pushed them ahead of the Mets and Phillies in the National League.
So how did the Rangers go from a team in bankruptcy at the beginning of the year to a major player?
New owner Chuck Greenberg and Rangers president Nolan Ryan benefitted from the strong possibility the FOX Sports Southwest was getting competition in Houston from Comcast. We are all very familiar with the CSN brand and the Long Star state seems to be their next target.
So the Rangers, Mavs, and Stars are going to get nice new extensions while things in Houston heat up as Comcast comes to town.
Astros owner Drayton McLane seems to be close to a deal that would include Comcast as a minority partner in a new Houston-based network.
If Comcast is able to complete the deal, it would follow the strategy of other Comcast-owned Regional Sports Networks. The Cubs, Bulls, White Sox and Blackhawks own 70 percent of CSN Chicago; the Mets hold 80 percent of SportsNet New York and the San Francisco Giants own about 30% of CSN Bay Area.
This could set off a chain reaction of teams looking for better deals — the Dodgers are considering a new channel of their own, as are the Padres.
Look for a number of teams to rework their deals and seek increases because the Rangers deal was a real game-changer.
MLB’s LCS get underway
TBS has the American League Championship Series — which hits the airwaves Friday at 7:30 p.m. On Saturday night, also at 7:30, the National League Championship Series airs on Fox.
The entertaining Turner sports crew of Matt Winer (host), Dennis Eckersley (analyst), Cal Ripken (analyst) and David Wells will handle the pre- and postgame duties. The ALCS game broadcast duties will be in the very capable and talented hands of Ernie Johnson (play-by-play), Ron Darling (analyst), John Smoltz (analyst) and Craig Sager (reporter). The trio of Johnson, Darling and Smoltz have done an outstanding job in their first postseason together and they provide TBS with a first-class team to build on for years to come.
Meanwhile FOX will start things off in the pregame show with the talented and versitle Chris Rose, who will be paired with Eric Karros for part of the show. Baseball’s most respected broadcast team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver will handle the NLCS duties — and they will also do the World Series. Baseball insider Ken Rosenthal will also be reporting during the Fox broadcasts.
Examiner columnist Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this!
