Fox has been broadcasting the World Series since Derek Jeter was a rookie in 1996 — and there is momentum for that to continue.
Major League Baseball and Fox are moving toward a new multibillion-dollar deal to extend the network’s longtime hold on the World Series for the foreseeable future, The Post has learned.
Sources said MLB is open to doing an extension with Fox because it is happy with the relationship, and it would be receiving a substantial enough increase without going on the marketplace.
The current deal that Fox has with MLB runs through 2021. At that time, the network will have been broadcasting the World Series for a quarter century. Fox has reportedly been paying $525 million per year.
Fox also broadcasts the All-Star Game. Weekly games and shows air across both its network and its sports cable channel, FS1. It also carries a divisional round and league championship playoff series preceding the World Series.
Joe Buck has been the mainstay as the play-by-player on Fox since Jeter’s Yankees won their championship in ‘96. Buck recently extended his contract with Fox, agreeing to call the Series through 2021, but he left open the possibility of not continuing after, if Fox retained the rights to MLB’s most marquee event.
Retaining the World Series and its baseball package would fit into Fox’s live-sports mantra after its $71.3 billion deal with Disney. The network has acquired “Thursday Night Football,” WWE and boxing to go along with college football, making it a destination for live prime-time sports events. The Post and Fox share common ownership.
MLB is not believed to have started any new formal negotiations with ESPN or Turner, its two other national partners.
Quick Clicks: On WFAN on Sunday, former Giants lineman David Diehl told a story that made you want to continue listening.
With Giants backup quarterback Kyle Lauletta in trouble, Diehl said that when JaMarcus Russell was with the Raiders, coaches suspected he wasn’t studying game film. To catch him, they gave him recordings with nothing on them. The next day, Russell came to the facility and said he studied the blitz packages. There was nothing on the the film.
The story apparently had been out there before, as ESPN’s Kirk Morrison, a former Raiders linebacker, said on Twitter he has told it previously on-air. The San Francisco Chronicle had also reported the tale years ago. Diehl brought it up because he was detailing how Lauletta, with his arrest, may not be taking his opportunity to potentially start this season seriously enough. Diehl used the Russell example to emphasize how chances can be squandered.
…. No Jim Nantz or Tony Romo, no problem. With CBS giving its top broadcast team Sunday off, the ratings for its single-header were up 23 percent compared to a year ago. Over on NBC, unsurprisingly, the Tom Brady-Aaron Rodgers showdown gave the network its best Week 9 overnight rating in the 13-year history of its Sunday night package.
NYU will soon offer a four-credit course on “How Basketball Can Save the World,” which will be based around Dan Klores’ ESPN film, “Basketball, A Love Story.” Sounds like fun.