Disney’s Q2 (Jan/Feb/Mar) FY 2021 Earnings Results Webcast on Thursday, May 13, 4:30ET.

[RSoxNo1]

In case you're wondering how far baseball's popularity has fallen, the new MLB deal will be only for Sunday night games and postseason/wild card games. ESPN won't air any more weekday games.

Most fans prefer to watch their local broadcasts, and the weekday option didn't give ESPN exclusivity. Fox has a better deal with MLB.

TBS and Fox need MLB far more than ESPN needs them. Fox may have to seriously cut back on sports portfolio after their insane NFL deal and Turner Sports is only expanding because AT&T suddenly felt sports would help HBO Max's mediocre numbers thus far (it wasn't a long time ago that rumors suggested AT&T was considering stripping Turner Sports for parts, starting with the AT&T regional sports networks and Bleacher Report).

The other issue is simply that baseball has a massive pace of play problem. I'm a Red Sox season ticket holder and have been a diehard baseball fan my entire life. They need to find an effective way to reduce the time of game to be 2 hours and 45 minutes with greater consistency.

There are some steps that they've taken that are good, but they need to do more. Like most "problems" in this world, there's never a magic bullet solution and multiple things need to change to improve it. This is more than just pitch clocks, it's also about the style of play itself.