This Saturday’s sports TV schedule saw a massive shift Friday. That came with the news from Major League Baseball that Game 5 of the Detroit Tigers-Cleveland Guardians American League Divisional Series (set to be broadcast on TBS and Max) will be moved up seven hours, from 8:08 p.m. ET to 1:08 p.m. ET, due to forecast inclement weather in the Cleveland area Saturday night.
Saturday’s decisive ALDS Game Five between the @CleGuardians and @tigers at Progressive Field has been moved up to a 1:08 p.m. (ET) start due to the forecast for inclement weather in Cleveland. pic.twitter.com/Hg24nNSIxF
— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) October 11, 2024
The NLDS and ALDS alternate between TBS (well, their parents TNT Sports and Warner Bros. Discovery) and Fox each year, and it’s a very good thing for everyone that it was TBS with this ALDS this year. Their current afternoon schedule for Saturday is just reruns of Friends and The Big Bang Theory, while the Fox broadcast network has two college football games with Washington-Iowa and then Stanford-BYU. (Of course, MLB might not have scheduled a Saturday game for Fox given that network’s CFB commitments.)
This is still perhaps a bit less than ideal for TBS, though. This game was initially set to be at 4:30 p.m. ET Saturday, but was moved back into primetime after the Kansas City Royals-New York Yankees series (which would have been their primetime game) ended in four games Thursday. Now, it’s moved up into the early afternoon.
That’s maybe positive from a sports competition standpoint. The noon CFB slate is often weaker than the primetime one, and looks to be this week in particular, where primetime has No. 2 Ohio State-No. 3 Oregon and No. 9 Ole Miss-No. 13 LSU on broadcast networks NBC and ABC. But this isn’t as great from a perspective of how many people are watching at that particular time; primetime is primetime for a reason, even on weekends.
Still, an earlier game is definitely better than one with poor field conditions due to weather, especially if those lead to delays or postponements. And it makes sense that everyone involved here is being proactive with this adjustment when there’s a forecast storm. But it does lead to a notable shift in the TV sports landscape Saturday, and one perhaps not ideal for TBS.
[MLB PR on X]
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.