Diehard baseball fan who used to love Sunday Night Baseball a decade plus ago. ESPN all but ran it into the ground by only focusing on about 6 franchises (NYY, BOS, NYM, CHC, LAD, STL). How extreme was the favoritism? The Yankees and Red Sox combined for 94 appearances in the last decade vs teams like the Reds having zero appearances. It wasn’t just Cincy; 18 of 30 teams had under 10 appearances since 2016. The Milwaukee Brewers had fewer appearances on Sunday Night Baseball than division titles won over that same period!
In addition to the lack of variety in franchises, matchups, and stadiums/cities featured, the product had become downright dismal. It was as if ESPN felt baseball was too boring to cover and opted to prioritize in-game interviews with the game progressing merely as a background side-show.
Jason Benetti and the NBC team are outstanding! Costas provides a great tie to the past, the cast has diverse MLB ties, and the emphasis on the game’s history and the camera views are excellent. Excited that Sunday night’s in the summer have something worth tuning into again.
Bonus points - we’ve had two local teams in the Tigers and Cleveland in the last two weeks. Amazingly in two weeks, KC will be the host site and neither the Yankees nor Red Sox are visiting. Detroit will host a second time before mid-May.
