The History of Baseball Broadcasting: Radio, Television and Streaming

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 11 min read

From the first radio broadcast in 1921 and the first televised game in 1939 to regional sports networks and streaming, how each new medium changed what fans saw, what clubs earned and how the game was played.

Baseball and broadcasting grew up together, and each changed the other. The first major-league game on the radio was played in 1921, the first on television in 1939, and in each case the clubs worried that giving the game away would empty the ballpark. In each case the new medium turned out to build a larger audience and, eventually, a source of revenue that for many clubs outgrew the gate. The business that now pays a very large share of the sport's bills, the sale of broadcast rights, is the product of those two generations of experiments.

The history is also a history of voices and pictures. Radio made announcers into companions who sat in the kitchen and the car for 162 games a year. Television added the camera angle, the replay and, later, the strike-zone box. Cable and the internet made it possible to watch a team from the other side of the country, and also made it possible for a fan to lose access to a team that moved to a service they did not subscribe to.

This article follows the story in eras. It covers the first broadcasts, the fear of empty seats, the golden age of the radio announcer, the arrival of television, the network and cable packages, the regional sports networks, the digital and streaming era and the questions facing the model today. It also explains how the money flows and why blackouts exist.

Before the microphone

For the first half-century of professional baseball, almost everyone who followed the game did so from a newspaper. The sports page carried the box score the next morning, and for a big game a crowd might gather outside a newspaper office or a telegraph office to watch a scoreboard updated by hand as reports came in over the wire. The experience of the game was something that happened somewhere else, and arrived late.

When radio stations began to broadcast, some of them used the telegraph. A telegraph operator at the ballpark sent each play to the studio, and an announcer turned the terse messages into a description, adding crowd noise and the sound of a bat made with a stick. This technique, called a re-creation, let a station cover games it could not afford to send an announcer to. Ronald Reagan, before he went into film and politics, worked as a radio announcer in Iowa and re-created Chicago Cubs games in this way.

1921 to 1938: radio arrives, and the fear of empty seats

The first radio broadcast of a major-league game took place on August 5, 1921, when KDKA in Pittsburgh carried the Pirates against the Phillies at Forbes Field, with Harold Arlin at the microphone. In the early 1920s, radio also began to carry the World Series. By the middle of the decade, stations in several cities were broadcasting local games.

The clubs were divided. Some owners saw radio as free advertising, because a listener who heard a game might come to the ballpark to see one. Others feared that a fan who could listen at home would not buy a ticket, and that attendance and gate receipts would fall. The New York clubs, which shared a market, were among the most cautious, and for several years in the 1930s they kept their home games off the air. The argument was settled by the evidence over the following decades: clubs that broadcast their games did not see their crowds vanish, and radio created fans who had never been to a park.

Broadcasters in this period learned their craft from scratch. They had no model, no replays and no screen, so everything had to be described in words. The best of them worked out how to paint a picture of the field, how to fill the time between pitches and how to keep a listener's attention through a long afternoon. The style that developed, conversational and detailed, has changed less than almost anything else in the sport. The tradition is described more fully in baseball announcers and the radio voice.

The radio years, 1939 to the 1950s

By the end of the 1930s, local radio had become part of the way a city followed its team. Sponsors paid for the broadcasts, and the announcer became one of the best-known people in town. Red Barber began broadcasting Brooklyn Dodgers games in 1939, when the New York clubs ended their ban, and Mel Allen became the voice of the Yankees. These were not just play-by-play men. They were the way many fans experienced the sport, and some listeners knew their voices better than the players' faces.

Radio also had a reach that no ballpark could match. A game on the air could be heard by hundreds of thousands, and in the years before television it was the main link between a team and its region. It helped create the idea of a club as a regional institution, with a fan base that stretched far beyond the city that held the park. Vin Scully, who began with the Dodgers in 1950 and called their games until 2016, spent 67 seasons with one club, a record for a broadcaster with a single team.

1939 to the 1960s: television arrives

The first televised major-league game was played on August 26, 1939, a doubleheader between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds at Ebbets Field, broadcast by an experimental NBC station in New York with Red Barber describing it. Very few people owned a set, and the picture was crude. For almost a decade television remained a curiosity.

That changed after the Second World War. The 1947 World Series, between the Yankees and the Dodgers, was the first to be televised, and the audience was reported in the millions. It was also the first World Series with a Black player, Jackie Robinson, on one of the teams, and for many people in the Northeast it was their first sight of him. By the early 1950s, sets were in a growing number of homes, and television was becoming a major force.

The effect on attendance was not what the clubs hoped. Many minor-league clubs lost crowds in the 1950s as television came into their markets, and the loss of fans contributed to the shrinking of the minor leagues. In the majors, the picture was more mixed. Some clubs found that television cut into the gate, and others found that it created new fans. Television rights fees began to be a meaningful share of a club's income, especially in large markets.

National broadcasts began too. A weekly Game of the Week was carried on the networks beginning in the 1950s, with a former pitcher, Dizzy Dean, among its best-known voices. These games gave fans a view of teams other than their own and began to build the game's national identity. They also raised a question that baseball is still working out: how to share the revenue and the coverage between a national league and thirty local markets.

The 1960s to the 1980s: networks, superstations and cable

By the 1960s, television was a settled part of the business. The Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 allowed leagues to sell their television rights as a package, a power that baseball used for national games, though most clubs sold local rights themselves. The most important innovation in prime time came in 1971, when a World Series game was played at night for the first time. Over the next decade the Series moved to evening starts, and today it is a prime-time event.

The mid-1970s brought two connected changes. Free agency arrived, and salaries began to rise, and the growth in television money helped to pay for them. Network coverage expanded as well: ABC began Monday Night Baseball in 1976, which put regular-season games in prime time.

Cable changed the picture again. Some local stations, such as WGN in Chicago, which carried the Cubs, and WTBS in Atlanta, which carried the Braves, were distributed nationally by cable and became known as superstations. A fan in another part of the country could watch a team every day, and the Cubs and Braves built national followings that a local audience alone would not have given them. In 1990 ESPN began showing regular-season games, and cable became a permanent part of baseball's national package.

The 1990s and 2000s: regional sports networks and the internet

The next phase was the rise of regional sports networks. Clubs and cable companies created channels devoted to the games of local teams, and the rights fees they paid grew rapidly. Some clubs, including those in New York and Boston, owned part of their own networks, which allowed them to keep the profits. Revenue from local television became one of the largest differences between big-market and small-market clubs, a theme covered in how baseball teams make money.

National networks also changed. Fox became a major partner in the 1990s, and other cable channels carried postseason games. In 2002 Major League Baseball launched MLB.TV, a subscription service that streamed out-of-market games over the internet. In 2009 the league started its own channel, MLB Network, which gave it a full-time outlet for highlights, studio shows and live games. Both of these were examples of the league moving from licensing its product to distributing it directly.

The on-screen presentation improved as well. Broadcasters added a graphic strike zone that showed where each pitch crossed the plate, replays from multiple angles and, later, tracking data on the speed and spin of pitches and the exit velocity of balls in play. These changes altered how fans understood the game. A viewer could see whether a called strike was in the zone, and the umpire's judgment was now under constant review, which is one background factor in the experiments with automated strike zones.

The streaming era and the strain on the model

By the 2010s, the regional sports network model had a problem. It depended on cable subscribers paying for the channel whether or not they watched, and as viewers cut cable, the money behind the model weakened. By the early 2020s, several of the companies that owned regional networks were in financial trouble, and the league took over the local production and distribution of some clubs' games. The details have been changing quickly, and readers should check the current situation for any specific team.

At the national level, streaming companies began to bid for rights. Starting in 2022, services such as Apple TV+ and Peacock carried national games, alongside the traditional partners. The league also offers its own streaming product to fans, and the rules about which games are blacked out where continue to be a source of complaint. The pattern that began with radio in 1921 continues: each new platform attracts a new audience, the clubs worry about the effect on the old one, and the sums of money change.

A timeline of the main steps

What broadcasting changed on the field

Television and radio changed the game as well as the business. Night games, introduced in the major leagues in 1935, suited working fans, and postseason start times are now set with a national television audience in mind. Commercial breaks between half-innings are timed to the length of the advertising slot. The length of games became a concern in part because broadcasters and fans noticed that games had become longer.

The league responded with rules aimed at the pace of play. The limits on mound visits and pickoff throws, and later the pitch clock, were designed to cut dead time, and the changes are described in mound visits and pickoff limits. The league reported that games became shorter after the pitch clock arrived in 2023. Part of the motive was commercial: a faster game suits a television audience.

Baseball is not the only sport shaped this way, but its pace and its season make the effect unusually visible. The 162-game schedule means that a team is on the air nearly every day for six months, which is why the voice that fills that time matters so much, and why a broadcaster who stays with a club for decades becomes part of the team's identity.

How the money works

A club earns broadcast money in two main ways. Local rights are sold by each club to a regional network or station, and the fee depends on the size of the market and the strength of the club. National rights are sold by the league to networks and streaming companies, and the money is shared among all thirty clubs. Part of the local revenue is also shared through a system of revenue sharing, which is part of the collective agreement between the league and the players' union, described in the Major League Baseball Players Association.

Blackouts exist because local rights are sold for a territory. A network that pays for the exclusive right to show a club's games in its region wants to be the only place its viewers can watch them, so out-of-market streaming packages block games within the club's territory. The arrangement protects the value of the local contract and is a common frustration for fans who live in a team's territory but do not subscribe to the local channel.

Common questions

When was the first baseball game on the radio? On August 5, 1921, from Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, on KDKA.

What was the first televised game? A Dodgers-Reds doubleheader at Ebbets Field on August 26, 1939.

Why can't I watch my local team on a streaming package? Because of territorial blackouts. The local rights holder has the exclusive right to show the games in that region.

Did television hurt attendance? The evidence is mixed. In the 1950s, minor leagues lost many fans to television. In the majors, the effect on a given club depended on its market and its record, and over the longer run broadcasting created more fans than it cost the clubs.

Do ticket prices depend on broadcasts? Indirectly. Broadcast revenue gives clubs money for payroll and facilities, and a team on television builds a following, as discussed in baseball ticket pricing and how to buy tickets.

Where to go next

For a part of the broadcasting story that is also a collecting story, read the history of baseball cards. To follow the schedule on television this week, the site's schedule page lists the games, and the baseball on TV and streaming topic page collects current news about rights and networks. For the tiebreakers that decide who reaches the broadcast postseason, see how MLB tiebreakers work.