While it remains a suitor for the portfolio of regional sports networks Disney will soon be unloading as a condition of getting its Fox acquisition to close, Sinclair Broadcast Group is taking a more novel path into the sports cable business. The No. 1 owner of local TV stations, which already owns the Tennis Channel…

Internet giant Tencent has reached an agreement with Major League Baseball to live stream games and highlight programs in China. Under terms of the multi-year agreement, Tencent will live-stream 125 games on exclusive basis to computers, mobile devices and via over the top platforms. Tencent plans to commemorate the…

Joe Garagiola, the catcher-turned-Hall of Fame announcer and sometime substitute host for Johnny Carson, has died in Arizona. He was 90. His death was announced by the Arizona Diamondbacks, the team his son, Joe Jr., formerly served as general manager. Garagiola played nine seasons for four teams including the New…

The benches haven’t cleared yet. But there’s a lot of yelling from the dugouts at the Fox-controlled YES Network, which carries the New York Yankees, and Comcast a little more than three weeks before the baseball season begins. YES has been dark on Comcast since November 18. They aren’t in serious talks to change…

A League Of Their Own director Penny Marshall is swinging away at a baseball biopic about Effa Manley, the sports trailblazer who became the first woman to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Manley made history by rising in the ranks of the Negro National League in the 1930s and ’40s as a co-owner and…

Speaking of Alec Baldwin, he and The Office’s John Krasinski are among a group who’ve shot trash-talking baseball rivalry spots that are about to begin airing. The spots are directed by Bryan Buckley. Here’s the one that Baldwin and Krasinski…

Fox is expected to easily top the ratings for last night with its broadcast of the MLB All-Star Game, which is down from last year. In overnight household ratings, the drop was 12%. Time-zone adjusted fast nationals will be released later this morning. The regular fast nationals, which could serve as a rough estimate…