January 25, 2023
Batter Up: XM Carries All MLB Games
- by Erik Sass @eriksass1, April 3, 2009
XM Radio will broadcast
coverage of every game of the 2009 Major League Baseball season. The first event covered is the Opening Night game on the evening of April 5, which has the Philadelphia Phillies facing off against the
Atlanta Braves at Citizens Bank Park. Announcing the game will be Harry Kalas, Scott Franzke and Larry Andersen.
As part of its baseball lineup on April 5, Sirius XM's MLB Home Plate, a 24-hour baseball talk channel, will broadcast a pre-game special hosted by Scott Graham and Buck Martinez, a former catcher and manager, who will interview players and fans as the 2009 season opens.
Then on Monday, April 6, XM will broadcast coverage of all 13 games from MLB Opening Day. This will be followed by broadcasts of all MLB team games over the rest of the season and post-season, including Spanish-language coverage on XM's MLB En Espanol channel.
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Scott Greenstein, president and chief content officer for Sirius XM, promised that "once again, XM listeners will have access to every Major League Baseball game with no blackouts or exclusions."
"MLB Home Plate" will feature baseball punditry and analysis from a daily lineup of hosts, including Cal Ripken Jr., Bill Ripken, Rob Dibble, Jim Duquette, Kevin Kennedy, and Buck Martinez.
In the past, radio ratings firm Arbitron has found large audiences tuning in for high-profile baseball games. In 2006, when the Detroit Tigers faced the St. Louis Cardinals in the fall classic, Arbitron found that 30% of adults in the St. Louis area listened to all or part of the World Series on the radio. Of these, 83% said they were less likely to change the radio station when listening to a World Series game.
In spite of the ballyhooed merger between the two satellite radio companies, one of them is carrying MLB and the other isn't. Sirius subscribers do not have access to baseball and, in the long run, this is going to hurt their base. One of the primary reasons customers were willing to look past the possible monopoly questions when Sirius/XM was formed was the opportunity to acquire all of the programming from both services. In fact, in his testimony before Congress, Mel Karmazin stated that full access would be provided. This has not happened. If the promises made are not fulfilled, Congress may have to step in.