Network Sued by Baseball

Major league baseball, which terminated its contract with ESPN earlier this month over the switch of three September games to a secondary outlet, is countersuing the cable network, as well.

The issue is whether ESPN broke its contract by moving three baseball games to ESPN2 in September so that it could show three NFL games--Pittsburgh at Cleveland, New York Jets at Buffalo and New York Giants at New England --in their place on the main network.

The baseball games affected are Milwaukee at Colorado Sept. 12, San Francisco at San Diego Sept. 19 and Houston at Milwaukee Sept. 26.

Baseball said it would end its relationship with ESPN after this season because of the switch. The cable network then sued to maintain its contract which runs through 2002 and baseball responded with its suit on Friday.

“No one at ESPN has seen the suit so we don’t know its contents,” said Chris LaPlaca, a spokesman for the network. “We were not surprised that they countersued, though.”

The cable network is in its second full season of NFL games. Last year, baseball took back preempted games and moved them to local outlets.

The ESPN contract permits the network to move games, with baseball’s approval. LaPlaca said that since 1993 when ESPN2 was launched, close to 15 baseball games have been moved there so that ESPN could show events such as World Cup soccer, Grand National auto racing, NHL playoffs and the College World Series.

He said the network offered to televise a series of Tuesday and Friday baseball games in September and pennant-race specials, all to be seen on ESPN, but that baseball rejected that option.

LaPlaca called NFL games “the gold standard in sports ratings,” and said that last year ESPN’s average rating for NFL games was 8.1 and 1.8 for baseball.

ESPN is in 76 million homes, ESPN2 64 million.