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Fox, TBS land new baseball deal

By Ben Walker Ap Baseball Writer 2 min read

PITTSBURGH – First-round playoff games will be shown only on cable starting next season as part of baseball’s new seven-year television deal with Fox and TBS, a total package worth almost $3 billion. Turner Broadcasting System also will televise 26 regular-season Sunday games in 2008 while eventually cutting back on its nationwide Atlanta Braves coverage.

The World Series, All-Star games and Saturday afternoon telecasts remain on Fox through 2013, as does one of the league championship series. The other LCS – alternating between AL and NL each year – is still up for bidding.

There is a chance, too, that TBS could benefit from the deal even sooner. The network will show all division and wild-card tiebreaker games, starting this year.

So if the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees finish even in the AL East this October and just one playoff spot remains, for example, TBS gets the game.

“Don’t make me start dreaming,” Turner Sports president David Levy said. “I’m looking for a lot of ties.”

Levy said it was too early to speculate which announcers TBS might want for its national games. He also said the network might “tinker with Braves” telecasts later this season to try out different camera angles and graphics packages for next season.

“We’ve always wanted to be a player in the postseason market,” he said.

Turner began showing Braves games locally on WTBS in 1973, then took them national via satellite four years later.

TBS will show 70 Braves games nationally next year, then 45 per season locally through 2013. Up to 13 of those Atlanta games can be shown on TBS’ Sunday package.

“Turner Sports has long been familiar to baseball fans, and we are excited that their coverage will now extend to all of our clubs during the regular season,” commissioner Bud Selig said.

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