The Boston Red Sox are the latest MLB team to announce a limited regular-season return to over-the-air television. However, despite this over-the-air expansion by many teams, no MLB team airs all of its games over-the-air, unlike the NHL and NBA.
As part of the annual WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon, WSBK-TV Channel 38 will simulcast two Red Sox games against the Arizona Diamondbacks on August 17 and 18.
“By partnering with WSBK-TV38, NESN will increase the Telethon’s reach and help further the Jimmy Fund and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s lifesaving mission of providing compassionate cancer care and advancing groundbreaking research. The partnership enables NESN to bring the Telethon’s stories of patients, families and supporters to even more viewers across New England during the two-day fundraiser,” NESN said in a statement.
While the Red Sox have aired spring training simulcasts over-the-air in recent years, primarily on WHDH Channel 7 in Boston, it appears that the last time a regular-season game was available over-the-air locally was on WSBK in 2005.
And while NESN made this move to support the Jimmy Fund, the Red Sox join a rising number of baseball teams that have increased their local over-the-air presence in recent years.
In the 2021 season, just six MLB teams broadcast any games over-the-air: the Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, San Francisco Giants, Philadelphia Phillies, New York Mets, and New York Yankees. For some of those teams, it was a very minor presence. The Guardians and Reds broadcast no more than two games each.
Now, it’s easier to list the teams that don’t have over-the-air simulcasts. With the Red Sox announcement, there are just seven holdouts remaining: the Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, and Pittsburgh Pirates.
The Yankees moved the games they had over-the-air to Amazon Prime Video following the 2021 season.
This all comes as cable cord-cutting continues, which means fewer and fewer people have access to the majority of baseball telecasts on cable. While a fair number of NHL and NBA teams have moved all of their local games over-the-air, no MLB team has made this move yet.
The Chicago White Sox, with the launch of the Chicago Sports Network last year, briefly did air all of their games over-the-air. However, to end a carriage dispute with Comcast Xfinity, the Chicago Sports Network got rid of over-the-air affiliates in Illinois (including Chicago), northern Indiana, and Kentucky. It’s still possible to watch all games in Iowa and Indianapolis.
So, while it seems things are improving across the board for MLB broadcast accessibility, there are still no teams where fans can watch every locally broadcast game for free.
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