If You Like Baseball on TV, Stick to the Major Leagues

Major league baseball is the most televised professional sport, but when baseball makes its debut as a medal sport during the Summer Olympics, it will be one of the least televised sports. NBC is not scheduled to show any games during its 161 hours of coverage and only three games will be shown on the TripleCast pay package.

“It would be folly for us to program unknown, amateur baseball players head to head with the best-known professionals who are available on multiple cable channels in prime time throughout the country,” said Terry O’Neil, the executive producer of NBC sports.

In 1988, when baseball was a demonstration sport, NBC showed, “a couple of innings and a couple of (highlight) packages,” according to a network spokeswoman.

Wanda Rutledge, associate director of the U.S. Baseball Federation, the national governing body for amateur baseball, does not quibble with NBC’s decision not to carry any Olympic baseball games, but was disappointed that more games were not scheduled for the TripleCast.

“It’s not an extreme disappointment,” Rutledge said, also acknowledging that baseball is a difficult sport to televise and takes a tremendous amount of time. “This is baseball, which doesn’t have a (ratings) track record.”

Both baseball semifinals will be shown Aug. 4 on the TripleCast, as will the final Aug.5.

According to Ellen Cooper, a TripleCast spokeswoman, more baseball was not scheduled because it was not among the sports most widely requested in a pre-Olympic survey of more than 10,000 potential viewers.