'Sunday Night Baseball' begins summer stretch on NBC with Cardinals-Cubs matchup

NBC's baseball coverage starts to hit its stride this week as “Sunday Night Baseball” begins its summer stint on the network's primetime schedule.

>Beginning with Sunday night's NL Central matchup between the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals, there will be a game on NBC every week until Labor Day. The only exception is July 12 because of the start of the All-Star break.

>NBC will also have a game on Labor Day between the Cardinals and San Francisco Giants. The network will have the Wisconsin-Notre Dame college football game on Sept. 6.

>This is the first of a three-year deal for NBC to have Sunday night games along with the Wild Card rounds after ESPN opted out of its original rights deal with MLB.

>There were two early-season Sunday night games on NBC as well as an opening day doubleheader. The rest were streamed on Peacock.

>Justin Byczek, NBC Sports EVP of programing and rights management, said the momentum that baseball has had the past two years as well as the network having a spot on Sunday night's schedule made it a natural fit. With the NFL, NBA and baseball, NBC has sports on Sunday nights all but one week.

>“Coming back there was a ton of excitement around baseball returning to NBC, obviously a property we have legacy with. I think the excitement that the offseason had and the progress that baseball was making only fueled that even more. And the game is easier to watch,” Byczek said.

>ESPN averaged 1.83 million on Sunday night last year, its highest average since 2017. NBC has drawn at least 1.8 million for the two Sunday night games on linear television.

>The format of “Sunday Night Baseball,” where play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti is joined in the booth by analysts from both teams, has also proved to be a success.

>Benetti said at the beginning of the season that the aim was to have different conversations each week. That has been the case so far.

>“The wide range of topics that we have covered is vast and so I think it’s gone great. I think that starting the NBC stretch of it will be awesome for people who are inclined to watch on broadcast TV and the wide reach that provides,” Benetti said.

>This week's analysts will be former slugger Albert Pujols, who won three NL MVP awards with the Cardinals, and Jim Deshaies, a former Cubs pitcher who is an analyst on their local broadcasts.

>Deshaies has been a longtime friend of Benetti's.

>The Cubs-Cardinals game is one of many interesting matchups on NBC over the next couple of months. The schedule also includes Yankees-Red Sox on June 28, Padres-Dodgers on July 5, Dodgers-Yankees on July 19 and Giants-Red Sox on Aug. 23.

>Sunday night's game marks the first Cubs-Cardinals contest on NBC since June 3, 1989, when it was part of the Saturday afternoon “Game of the Week” window.

>“There’s something of an enormity around ‘Sunday Night Baseball,'" Benetti said. "I think there’s real juice in these stadiums, and Major League Baseball has done a great job of building to that.”

>___

>AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb