Regular season and postseason Major League Baseball game telecasts are presented in the United States on the American pay television network TBS as Major League Baseball on TBS. Turner Sports produces the games.
Turner Sports extended its agreement with Major League Baseball until the 2021 season on October 2, 2012.
TBS will continue to offer a non-exclusive Sunday afternoon late-season package of 13 regular-season games, down from 26 under the previous contract, which currently coexists with local broadcasts.
Since Ted Turner purchased the team’s broadcast rights in 1973, Atlanta independent station WTBS (channel 17, now WPCH-TV; which, like TBS, was owned by Turner Broadcasting System) had been a regular local broadcast location for Atlanta Braves baseball games.
The station later rose to national prominence when it was uplinked to a satellite in December 1976, becoming one of America’s first superstations.
WTBS was one of the few television networks that carried regional athletic events to a national audience, along with Chicago’s WGN-TV and New York’s WWOR-TV; some even dubbed the Braves “America’s Team.”
Turner Sports stated on September 24, 2020, that it had extended its rights through 2028 (coinciding with the end of Fox’s most recent deal).
The substitution of TBS’s late-season Sunday games with a new primetime game on Tuesday nights is a significant alteration in the contract.
The majority of the current postseason broadcasting agreements are still in place, with TBS still owning the broadcasting rights to two Division Series, the Championship Series, and one wild card game each year.