YES Network is bucking the ongoing trend in regional sports networks.
The New York-area regional sports network, which serves as the local television home for New York Yankees games, is expanding its pregame and postgame studio shows, according to a report by Eric Fisher in Front Office Sports. YES Network will add one extra hour of pregame coverage for Yankees games, as well as an additional 30 minutes of postgame coverage.
The moves come at a time when many of YES Network’s peers are scaling back shoulder programming around game broadcasts as the declining economics of the cable bundle force belt tightening across the industry.
YES will add two 30-minute programs to precede its usual pregame lineup: Yankees Rewind, which will look back at prior games as well as manager Aaron Boone’s full pregame press conference, and The Lineup, which will examine the team’s batting order for the upcoming game. Those shows will lead in to Yankees Batting Practice Today followed by the network’s traditional pregame show. Additionally, Extra Innings Live will be expanded by 30 minutes after each game.
Per Fisher, the full run of programming will run about six and a half hours on your average weeknight.
“Yankee fans have an insatiable appetite for content. They can’t get enough,” YES Network executive producer Jared Boshnack told Front Office Sports. “All RSNs are not created equal. We continue to invest.”
Yankees games averaged 293,000 viewers on YES Network last season, a substantial figure for a regional sports network.
New York-area fans will have to wait until Friday to see YES Network’s season debut; the Yankees open the season against the San Francisco Giants on Netflix on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET.