Fox Saturday Baseball

Fox Saturday Baseball is an American television presentation of Major League Baseball (MLB) games produced by Fox Sports for the Fox network on Saturday afternoons. Fox's coverage includes 4 weeks worth of coverage as of 2023. Coverage usually includes 2 to 4 separate games all starting at 4PM ET, local affiliates air the game of most interest to their audience. History Fox has used numerous scheduling formulas for its Saturday regular season coverage. These have often changed based on the rights granted by new television contracts, and the pregame programs that the network has chosen to air. From 1996 to 2006, Fox began its weekly game telecasts on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend or the weekend before. The selection of games varied on a regional basis, and the start times were staggered based on region. A half-hour pregame show aired at 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time, followed by game broadcasts held at 1 p.m. in the Eastern and Central Time Zones. West Coast games did not air until 4 p.m. Eastern Time (1 p.m. in the Pacific Time Zone). All of these games were exclusive to the broadcast network, and as a result, Fox's exclusivity window lasted through the entire afternoon. In 2007, Fox began airing games every Saturday during the season. A new scheduling format was devised, in which all of the regional games started simultaneously. Fox moved the pregame, which became part of the exclusive game window, to 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time. All of the Fox games would then start at 3:55 p.m. Eastern Time, regardless of region. This format gave more leeway for teams not being shown on Fox to schedule daytime games. Fox's exclusivity began at the start of the pregame at 3:30 and ran until 7 p.m. Eastern.