Makes sense to have the media outlet run the same way as the team on the field.

I mean, do the pregame and postgame segments really add anything?

They do when the team's winning. Too bad about Davis and Dempsey, and I assume that the game broadcasters will still be there during the actual games.

the Orioles website lists 19 broadcasters for the 2020 season (including the six reportedly let go), while the Nationals website lists 11 (half of which are radio)

That seems like a lot, even including the pre/post-game teams. We had the one year in Boston where there were something like 15 guys doing some radio, but that was a kind of awful outlier.

Seems like penny pinching that won’t come close to offsetting the fair market value for the Nationals broadcast rights, once MASN has to actually pay that

I mean, do the pregame and postgame segments really add anything?

I would say no, but aren't they really cheap vehicles to be able to sell more advertising? How much does it actually cost to have a couple guys in a studio doing a game preview or showing highlights of the game that just ended?

It appears they have something like 40 or 50 people on the payroll for shows that two people could do just as well at.

15 people on-air is hard to fathom, really.

The Dodgers used to have JUST Vin Scully, Ross Porter, and Jerry Doggett for both TV and radio and pre- and post-game, and later they swapped Rick Monday for Jerry Doggett, but it was still just 3 people doing both TV and radio for ~40 years up until 2004, and after they dumped Ross Porter they had basically 5 people for years after that.

More recently they have Charlie Steiner and Rick Monday on radio, and Joe Davis and Orel Hershisher on TV, with a bit of Nomar Garciaparra and Tim Neverett, which is just 6 people. The Dodgers also have Jaime Jarrin and Fernando doing Spanish-language broadcasting. Does MASN do that?

The A's have Ray Fosse, Vince Cottroneo, Ken Korach, Glen Kuiper, with a bit of Coco Crisp and Roxy Bernstein, and Chris Townshend doing the pre- and post-game on the radio. On TV they have had Dallas Braden doing field reporting sometimes, but he's really just a luxury item, if sometimes a plus.

post-game radio shows fascinate me.

well, not the shows, at all - but that they exist.

so I skip a NY/NJ ballgame and flip on local sports talk radio as I go to run an errand.

and 45 minutes after the game ends, they are STILL talking on the post-game.

I don't even get it for football, but at least there with only 16 games, and the team's fortunes do shift with most weeks.

as for the other sports?

the Nets are pretty interesting right now off the trade for Harden. I can see... maybe 15 minutes of postgame for them.

aren't they really cheap vehicles to be able to sell more advertising? How much does it actually cost to have a couple guys in a studio doing a game preview or showing highlights of the game that just ended?

Plus, these places have 24 hours to fill, and what else are you going to run in the 6pm-7pm hour before gametime, or the hour afterwards? Reruns of the local SportsCenter knockoff that was probably taped at 10pm the previous night? Some high school sports event that might run too long? Syndicated minor-league wrestling? Simulcast of an AM station's call-in show? None of those are likely better than the pre and post-game show, and it's probably not a whole lot more expensive to produce 90 minutes before/after (like NESN does on occasion) than 30 minutes.

I think the target audience of pre-game and post-game shows are people who just happen to be somewhere where there's a TV tuned in to the local Fox Sports affiliate. Like at a gym, for example. Where you might casually pay attention to it in between sets, just because it's there.

I'm guessing MASN has new middle managers, who would told to "cut costs!" and "clean house!" so that the top execs could afford that extra beach house.

I would be curious how many broadcasters and in studio people teams carried 20 years ago. It seems like a lot of employment bloat in this area of the production. This is true especially since everyone watching can immediately access every piece of data on every player, on the smart phone they are holding.

Do I really need a person being paid $100,000 a year to tell me that Enrico gives 100% on every play and that Eric cannot hit left handers, or even better, the sideline reporter breathlessly telling me that Drew limped off the field and went to the locker room, when I just saw Drew limp off the field.

In the old days of WGN there was no pre and post game show. Harry and Steve would get about 7 minutes before the game to tell you about the matchup and whatever amount of time it took to get to :30 or :00 after the game. Rain delays is where you'd get a lot of commentary

Like anything else the pre and post game shows are only as the good as the people running them. The Red Sox do a generally decent job. The primary host (Tom Caron) is a company man all the way but he's the classic "local celebrity." People like him a lot, he's affable, amusing, willing to be critical but not so critical anyone gets angry. Then they rotate a bunch of players as his sidekicks. Rice and Lyons get a lot of duty and then a bunch of other guys rotate through based on (presumably) availability. When he wasn't doing color on the broadcasts Eckersley was one, Wakefield another. When the Sox are playing well it's usually an entertaining watch and if they aren't well, why spend more time dissecting bad baseball.

Was there a recent thread about some of the other penny pinching moves the O's (not MASN) have explored or engaged in - like asking players to defer some of their salaries or replacing relatively inexpensive coaches? No bueno stuff.

I doubt the Orioles paid all 19 of the on air talent $100,000 salaries. Probably many are free-lance or part-timers. The basic job of talking on air and filling time for many ads can be filled by newcomers as the team did last summer.Gary Thorne probably makes $1 million plus a season. Is he worth that to a team with budget issues? The newcomers who worked the games in the summer seemed fine to me, some more appealing than others.

I prefer a variety of hosts to listening to Mike Bordick and Rick Dempsey for several games in a row, making the same observations.

In the old days of WGN there was no pre and post game show. Harry and Steve would get about 7 minutes before the game to tell you about the matchup and whatever amount of time it took to get to :30 or :00 after the game. Rain delays is where you'd get a lot of commentary

There wasn't the shelf space for the inventory then. As the shelf space has grown, so too has the inventory -- much of it highly inferior -- to fill it.

(If memory serves, old school WGN called it "The Leadoff Man" and it was more like 15 minutes -- but memory might not serve. Lou Boudreau I thought hosted it in pre-Harry days.)

That does seem like a lot of "talent" for one game. In comparison the Phillies, the sole team in a much bigger market, let go Jim Jackson, who did around 1.5 hrs of pre- and post-game on radio and called three innings a game. It's possible he's being replaced by a cheaper option (JJ is also the Flyers TV play-by-play guy, so he'll be alright), but the Phillies are cutting bone, not fat, right now.

Do people actually literally watch an 30-60 minute pregame, a 3-4 hour game, and a 30-60 minute postgame 162 times per season? How many people actually do that? It can't be many, and it really, really, really shouldn't be many.

Not many people watch, but the regional sports networks have very low ratings and only really draw people for the games. If you can catch them for 1/2 hour early or stay a little longer, it makes a difference.

My guess is that the vast majority of the people watching the postgame show fall into two categories:

1. People who missed most of the game and want to see the highlights
2. People trying to get the waitress at Buffalo Wild Wings to change to channel to the west coast game

I'd also guess that the pre- and postgame shows get ten times the viewers of anything else on an RSN, except for the games themselves.

I doubt the Orioles paid all 19 of the on air talent $100,000 salaries. Probably many are free-lance or part-timers.

That’s my impression, too. For whatever reasons, the Orioles & MASN preferred an army of part-time color commentators & studio analysts, rather than a set lineup. Looks like they’re letting the most recognizable names go, which presumably saves some money. Until the post-Machado Orioles enjoy some success, the potential audience for the pre & post-game shows, as well as the games themselves, is probably fairly small.

I'm sure the pre- and post-game shows have higher ratings than the 7 year-old strongman competition that would otherwise air. I've had pre and post game shows on in the past few years. They're good background when you are making dinner or something.

Do people actually literally watch an 30-60 minute pregame, a 3-4 hour game, and a 30-60 minute postgame 162 times per season? How many people actually do that?

Not 162 times a year, but by the time I get home/out of the home office, there's almost always less than a movie's time before the game starts, and I'll generally keep it on until I'm done with whatever I was doing during the game (and since I'm a Red Sox fan, that's probably got me to 11pm). I'm single and don't have a lot else vying for my attention during that time period, but I don't imagine it's completely uncommon.

But it's not like NESN or any other RSN is expecting that; they're figuring on adding an average of one or two commercial breaks plus more exposure for whoever has the show's naming rights and bottom-line ads to the average viewing. Given that NESN has been running them on the days of national games and expanding the length of these shows for a while - they were 30 minutes not-too-long ago, but now generally run an hour, with the pre-game 90 minutes on Fridays and sometimes Mondays - I'm guessing that their numbers show that enough people show up early and stay late to make it worth it, especially if 90 minutes doesn't cost a whole lot more to produce than 30. I mean, heck, you're probably paying the camera and sound guys for a 4-hour shift regardless.

(If memory serves, old school WGN called it "The Leadoff Man" and it was more like 15 minutes -- but memory might not serve. Lou Boudreau I thought hosted it in pre-Harry days.)

That’s right, a lot of that eaten up by commercials. That continued post-Boudreau, with Steve Stone doing the interviews. With most games starting at 1:20 or 2:20, they had twenty minutes to show highlights of the previous game, do a quick interview, and talk about the day’s lineup and a LOT of commercials.

Hamms beer and Household Finance

I get the "they'll get 10 viewers rather than 5 for the 7-year-old rerun" angle for regional TV networks airing ad nauseum post-game shows (and kudos to Post 21 for the BWW line).

but on big-market sports talk radio? I'm much more likely to listen to Doris in Rego Park or Jerome in Manhattan asking inane questions than I am to relive the 3 runs scored in the 5th inning of a 9-7 game in excruciating detail. the radio channel doesn't have the universal competition that TV does (well, I used to subscribe to Sirius, but that ended with my last new car purchase and I Siriusly don't miss it or paying for it. if the post-game extends for hours, I'll flip on a news channel or just turn off the radio. and I can't be the only one).

When I watch a game on tv, I don’t watch the post-game, but when I attend a game at the stadium, I like listening to the post-game on the radio during my drive home.

The Nationals are also impacted by the MASN cutbacks, and they’re not happy about it:

“MASN has notified us that they are parting ways with Dan Kolko, Bo Porter and Alex Chappell,” the team wrote. “In addition, MASN has cut Nats Xtra to just 15 minutes pre- and post-game. To say that we are incredibly disappointed and upset by MASN’s decisions would be a gross understatement. To be clear — these decisions were made by MASN and against our wishes.”

It appears that MASN - more accurately, the Orioles - is unwillingly to pay fair market value for the Nationals TV rights, or spend beyond the bare minimum, if that, for pre & post-game production. Seems only fair that the Nationals let MASN out what they must regard as a bad deal.

The timing makes it unlikely that any of those displaced will find full-time work in baseball this season, and few of those affected are at the end of their careers after decades of big media salaries.

I wonder if the purpose of the pre and post game shows from the club perspectives is to sell ads (I mean, I'm sure it is). So perhaps advertisers indicated they were unwilling to pay x price for ads during the pre and post game shows, thus making this an easy decision for MASN?