MLB On FOX To Have Ten Minute, On-Site Pregame Show

Wednesday, April 08, 2009


The MLB on FOX's pregame show was just a complete trainwreck. The hosts and analysts were pretty boring, it was way too long and the set looked like it was from the 1970s. Well all that is going to change this year as the pregame show will be cut down to only ten to twelve minutes, and the program will be hosted at the "Game of the Week". According to SBD, Chris Rose will be your host....

When Fox begins its 14th season as a broadcast partner of MLB Saturday afternoon at 4:00pm ET with three regional games, there will be a different look at the beginning of the telecasts. The net will debut a pregame segment hosted by Chris Rose that emanates from the site of one of the games. Fox Sports President Ed Goren today in a conference call said of the decision to eliminate the 30-minute pregame show that preceded coverage in years past, “Like every other business, whether it's newspapers or other broadcasters, there was certainly a need to tighten up our broadcast and focus on sales for the game.”

Goren: “The pregame in the past, for the most part, hasn’t had any national inventory. So we decided that, in this environment, certainly we weren’t going to come on at 3:30.” Goren also said that current coverage on other networks – including ESPN, FSN and the new MLB Network – serves the role of the traditional pregame show. Goren: “There’s a tremendous amount of baseball coverage on a daily basis today before you even get to the Internet. Doing the weekly show for a half-hour really isn’t as significant as it has been through the years.”
I really don't think that FOX's problem was with the timing of the show itself, but rather who they employed to be on it. This however is probably the most cost effective way to handle things, as no one really cares about pregame shows outside of College Gameday these days.

FOX To Debut At-Ballpark MLB Pregame Segment (Sports Business Daily - $)

Posted by Awful Announcing at 1:07 PM

7 Comments:

Chris Rose is not the answer, I know that for certain.

GMoney said...
Apr 8, 2009, 1:25:00 PM  

I wonder what the announcer assignments will be for the opening weekend for FOX.

Mikey said...
Apr 8, 2009, 2:37:00 PM  

Rose gave up his journalism standards when he hosted the Best Damn Worst Show, period.

Steve Smith said...
Apr 8, 2009, 4:21:00 PM  

Why is it Fox can't do anything right when it comes to announcing?

Their BCS games were an absolute joke and so are these

Good god, they suck

Apr 8, 2009, 8:56:00 PM  

Look at their first-week lineup:

Boston at Anaheim (Los Angeles)

Minnesota at Chicago

Houston at St. Louis

Tiger Woods has nothing to worry about.

Anonymous said...
Apr 8, 2009, 10:24:00 PM  

A lot of great people lost their studio jobs as a result, thanks Fox!

Unknown said...
Apr 9, 2009, 1:09:00 PM  

Well of course they changed the graphics again this year as well as dropping the pregame show altogether. This year's graphics look stupid compared to the ones they used last year. FOX needs to continue using the top-screen banner for its baseball broadcasts, not take a step backwards and downgrading it to a bug

Matt said...
Jul 12, 2009, 3:12:00 PM  

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