The break from Chris Berman yelling \u201cback, back, back, back\u2026Gone!\u201d has been long enough. Bring Berman back to the MLB Home Run Derby.<\/p>\n
Berman joined the latest episode<\/a> of Pardon My Take\u00a0with Dan \u201cBig Cat\u201d Katz and PFT Commenter (Eric Sollenberger) to discuss his new contract with ESPN. Earlier this month, Berman extended his contract<\/a> with ESPN through 2029, making him the first employee to celebrate a 50th anniversary with the Worldwide Leader. And PFT has an idea of how it should be celebrated.<\/p>\n After noting the potential issue that ESPN might not have the rights to any MLB All-Star events after this season, PFT suggested finding a way to celebrate the unprecedented anniversary by getting Berman back behind the mic for the 2029 Home Run Derby.<\/p>\n \ufeff If Berman can have a 50th-anniversary party at the 2029 Home Run Derby, great. But why wait for 2029? ESPN should bring him back to the derby while they still have it.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, ESPN opted out of the final three seasons of its contract with Major League Baseball after reportedly attempting to reduce its rights payment from $550 million to $200 million. The decision puts ESPN and MLB on track to part ways after this season, which means finding a new TV home for the Home Run Derby.<\/p>\n ESPN has said it\u2019s open to reengaging with MLB, so both sides could still agree to a new partnership beyond this season. But with Fox expressing interest in pairing the Home Run Derby with the All-Star Game and the league reportedly believing it could sell the derby as a standalone event for upwards of $50 million<\/a>, the prospect of ESPN retaining it seems unlikely.<\/p>\n Berman hasn\u2019t called the derby since 2016. And by 2016, we were all probably a little tired of hearing him yell \u201cback, back, back\u201d throughout the broadcast. But nearly a decade later, nostalgia kicks in and the idea of Berman calling the event again seems much more sufferable. Forget about 2029, bring Berman back this season, for what seems likely to be ESPN\u2019s last year airing the derby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The break from Chris Berman yelling \u201cback, back, back, back\u2026Gone!\u201d has been long enough. Bring Berman back to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,14547,1017,4,13669,14548],"class_list":{"0":"post-45721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chris-berman","10":"tag-home-run-derby","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mlb-all-star-game","13":"tag-pardon-my-take"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114550380170752325","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cYeah, okay. I\u2019m in,\u201d Berman said. \u201cIf they\u2019ll have me. I\u2019m still signed, I mean, yeah. There you go. We\u2019ll have our 50th party at the Home Run Derby. How about that?\u201d<\/p>\n