Jim Williams: Two homes better than one for Ravens fans?
Jim Williams, The Examiner
Aug 10, 2006 5:00 AM (2 hrs 4 mins ago)
Current rank: # 1 of 5,943 articles

BALTIMORE - OK, let’s start with Friday’s NFL preseason opener when the Ravens host the Giants. The game will be seen on FOX 45 at 8 p.m. The broadcast crew will be Dick Stockton, Daryl “Moose” Johnston and former Ravens star Tony Siragusa.


FOX 45 is the exclusive preseason broadcast home of the Ravens. Meanwhile, a recent deal means that the same games you will see on FOX 45 can also be seen on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), which is the new exclusive cable home of the team.

How can FOX 45 and MASN both be the exclusive home of the Ravens preseason games?

First of all, the preseason games belong to the team and can be aired anywhere the team wishes unless CBS, NBC, FOX or ESPN wants to air a Ravens preseason game nationally. As for MASN, it will produce special Ravens programs that you can only see on the new cable network; therefore they can say that they are the exclusive cable home of the Ravens.

(Interesting aside: The ESPN Monday Night Football broadcast crew of Mike Tirico, Joe Theismann and Tony Kornheiser will do an off-air final dress rehearsal at the Ravens-Giants game before their first telecast Monday night in Minnesota.)

Once the season begins, the AFC rights belong to CBS, so you will see most of the games on WJZ-13. As of now, a dozen telecasts are scheduled for CBS/WJZ. Two games — the Carolina game on Oct. 15 and the Falcons on Nov. 19 — are controlled by visiting NFC teams and FOX owns the NFC rights. Ravens fans can see those games on FOX 45.

We add to the mix the Oct. 9 Monday Night Football game from Denver on ESPN and the Nov. 30 Thursday night game home game against the Bengals that will be seen on the NFL Network. Both of those games will also be seen locally on WMAR TV 2 because the league sells nationally broadcast cable telecasts to local home market TV stations.

Let’s add to this entire mix that starting the week of Nov. 12, the new “flexible scheduling” begins. That means the NFL can change any game played after that date to Sunday night to be aired on the new NBC Sunday Night Football game of the week, and all of the 16 regular-season telecasts can be seen on WBAL TV 11.

Check The Examiner and we’ll tell you where to catch the game every week.

This week, you need to know that WBAL 1090 AM and 98 Rock/WIYY-FM will both have pregame shows starting at 5 p.m. At 8 p.m., the Orioles-Red Sox game will be on WBAL and the Ravens-Giants game will be on 98 Rock. You can hear the new Ravens broadcast team of Gerry Sandusky, Rob Burnett and Stan White.

Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. You can e-mail Jim at jwilliamsexaminer@gmail.com.
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