{"id":638880,"date":"2026-03-23T13:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T13:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/638880\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T13:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T13:06:16","slug":"nbc-sports-major-league-baseball-launch-crashes-into-big-city-landscapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/638880\/","title":{"rendered":"NBC Sports’ Major League Baseball Launch Crashes Into Big City Landscapes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWhen it comes to launching a new season of Major League Baseball<\/a> on NBC and Peacock, NBC Sports<\/a> isn\u2019t taking a half-hearted swing.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe NBCUniversal sports division on Monday morning unveiled a pair of giant baseballs (actually constructed out of milled expanded polystyrene) embedded into sidewalks in midtown New York City and Universal CityWalk Hollywood. Each ball \u2014 the New York version is 12 feet wide while the one near Universal is eight feet wide \u2014 features team logos and tune-in details for two Opening Day games being telecast by NBC Sports. The New York ball will be situated outside Major League Baseball\u2019s headquarters on Sixth Avenue in New York \u2014 not very far from NBC\u2019s headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Plaza.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe are going to to get core MLB fans who are excited to have baseball back and we are going after broader audiences and consumers who love a tentpole moment,\u201d says Lyndsay Signor, senior vice president of consumer engagement at NBC Sports, during a recent interview. <\/p>\n

\n\tNBC won the rights to a package of Sunday games<\/a> previously held by Disney\u2019s ESPN. The three-year deal also gives NBC access to all four Wild Card series of the postseason, and a package of 18 games that start prior to or around Noon locally on Sundays and will also be simulcast on NBCSN<\/p>\n

\n\tNBC Sports has had success with so-called \u201coutdoor\u201d promotions in the recent past. In October, to call attention to its new package of NBA games, NBC opened a custom LED basketball half-court at 30 Rock, with 30 pieces of team-inspired basketball artwork, using the so-called \u201c30 Rocks at 30 Rock\u201d display <\/a>to generate interest in the company\u2019s new NBA schedule. Maria Taylor, Michael Bubl\u00e9, Tom Llamas, Dylan Dreyer, Sam Brock and Carl Radke made appearances, along with NBA legends John Starks, Ron Harper, Jason Richardson, and Joakim Noah.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe new baseball display aimed to continue a series of recent promos NBC has shown that depict Aaron Judge\u00a0hitting baseballs from Yankee Stadium into various shows and studios at NBC\u2019s New York headquarters. In New York, a \u201cbaseline\u201d from the giant baseball outside MLB\u2019s headquarters will lead fans to NBC\u2019s 30 Rockefeller Center headquarters, where, starting on Wednesday, they will find batting cages and photo opportunities with the World Series trophy. A large viewing screen that facilitates watching coverage of the NBC Sports Opening Day doubleheader is already set up.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile this package of games is new, NBC has a long history with Major League Baseball. The first MLB television broadcast was a 1939 Cincinnati Reds-Brooklyn Dodgers doubleheader on W2XBS, the precursor to WNBC in New York. NBC Sports was a home to the first World Series broadcast in 1947, the first All-Star Game nationally broadcast in 1952, and has televised 39 World Series. NBC Sports was, from 1957 to 2000, home to programs including\u00a0Game of the Week\u00a0and\u00a0Monday Night Baseball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to launching a new season of Major League Baseball on NBC and Peacock, NBC Sports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,19,3625],"class_list":{"0":"post-638880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-baseball","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-major-league-baseball","10":"tag-nbc-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638880","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=638880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}