Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: Which Boston radio station broadcasts the Red Sox games?
The Boston Red Sox Radio Network consists of 61 stations (39 A.M., 22 F.M. and 7 F.M. translators) in the 6 New England states, along with New Mexico, New York, and Wyoming. The primary English-language announcers are Joe Castiglione and Tim Neverett, who alternate play-by-play and color commentary. In 2015, Rob Bradford and Lou Merloni filled in for former announcer Dave O'Brien when he called "Monday Night Baseball" for ESPN. Mike Mutnansky serves as pre- and post-game host.
NBC Sports Boston is an American regional sports network that is owned by the NBC Sports Group unit of NBCUniversal, and operates as an affiliate of NBC Sports Regional Networks. Headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, the channel broadcasts regional coverage of professional sports events throughout New England with a major focus on Boston area teams, as well as several original analysis, magazine and entertainment programs. It is available on cable providers throughout Massachusetts, eastern and central Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island; it is also available nationwide on satellite via DirecTV.
The sports format currently heard on WEEI-FM originated on September 3, 1991 on 590 AM (which at that time had the WEEI call letters), replacing an all-news format that had been in place since 1974; WEEI itself had gone on the air in 1924. At that time, the station was owned by Boston Celtics Communications (a group that shared ownership with the Boston Celtics basketball team), which bought WEEI from Helen Broadcasting on May 10, 1990 and simultaneously purchased WFXT (channel 25) from Fox Television Stations. The station, which had already carried Celtics broadcasts since 1987, expanded its sports programming after the sale; WEEI became the flagship station of the Boston Bruins (replacing WPLM-FM) in 1990 (however, Celtics broadcasts were given priority, resulting in some Bruins broadcasts moving to WVBF or WMEX), and a nightly sports talk show with Craig Mustard was launched on August 20, 1990. WEEI also carried "Sports Byline USA" and CBS Radio Sports broadcasts not cleared by WRKO, which took all other CBS Radio Network programming from WEEI on September 3, 1990, leading the station to affiliate with the ABC Direction Network.
Enterprise Radio was created by Scott Rasmussen, the son of Bill Rasmussen, who was the founder of ESPN. The all sports radio network went on the air in January 1981 and lasted until September 21, 1981. The network broadcast sports reports twice an hour and did live phone in sports talk from 6 pm to 8 am Eastern Time seven days a week. Talk show hosts and update announcers included John Sterling, the current voice of the New York Yankees; Don Chevrier, the longtime TV voice of the Toronto Blue Jays; network radio veterans John O'Reilly and Bob Buck; Jay Howard, the radio voice of the San Antonio Spurs' first NBA championship; and Bill Denehy, a former major league pitcher. The network reached approximately 74 stations nationwide at its peak, with most local stations broadcasting the talk shows and the sports reports to supplement their local programming. ER also carried the 1981 Stanley Cup Finals and did extensive coverage of the National Sports Festival in Syracuse, New York. Network radio veteran John Chanin was the executive producer.
Meanwhile, the Fox Broadcasting Company's other sister cable channel FX, aired numerous Saturday night Major League Baseball contests in 2001, including Cal Ripken, Jr.'s final game at Camden Yards. FX also aired one game in the Major League Baseball postseason each year from 2001 to 2005, on the first Wednesday night of League Championship Series week when the league scheduled two games at the same time. On that night, Fox distributed one game to local affiliates with the availability of coverage being based on region, and the other game aired on the corresponding cable affiliate of FX, the main DirecTV or Dish Network channel, or an alternate channel on the satellite providers.
The 2004 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 2004 season. The 100th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff between the American League (AL) champion Boston Red Sox and the National League (NL) champion St. Louis Cardinals; the Red Sox swept the Cardinals in four games. The series was played from October 23 to 27, 2004, at Fenway Park and Busch Memorial Stadium, broadcast on Fox, and watched by an average of just under 25.5 million viewers. The Red Sox's World Series championship was their first since 1918.
WEEI traces its roots to its original owner, Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Boston (hence the call letters). Edison placed the station on the air September 29, 1924. The station broadcast on various frequencies over the next several years, settling on 590 kHz in 1927. In 1926, WEEI became a charter member of the NBC Red Network and remained an NBC Red affiliate until 1936, when the station was leased by CBS and became an affiliate of that network. CBS bought WEEI outright from Boston Edison on August 31, 1942. An FM sister station, WEEI-FM (103.3 FM, now WODS), went on the air in 1948. Until 1960, WEEI, through CBS Radio, was the last Boston radio station to devote a large amount of its program schedule to "traditional" network radio programming of daytime soap operas, comedy shows, variety shows, and similar fare.
The history of the 590 frequency dates back to September 29, 1924 as WEEI, owned by Edison Electric Illuminating (hence the call letters). In its earliest days, the station was a public relations vehicle for Edison. The station broadcast on various frequencies over the next several years, settling on 590 kHz in 1927. In 1926, WEEI became a charter member of the NBC Red Network and remained an NBC Red affiliate until 1936, when the station was leased by CBS and became an affiliate of that network. CBS bought WEEI outright from Boston Edison on August 31, 1942. An FM sister station, WEEI-FM (103.3 FM, now WODS), went on the air in 1948. Until 1960, WEEI, through CBS Radio, was the last Boston radio station to devote a large amount of its program schedule to "traditional" network radio programming of daytime soap operas, comedy shows, variety shows, and similar fare.
In 1997, FX obtained partial pay-TV rights to Major League Baseball games; the channel initially aired game telecasts on Monday nights, before moving them to Saturday nights in 1998. In 2000, FX began sharing the Major League Baseball pay-TV rights with then-sister network Fox Family Channel (taking rights to the league's Thursday evening games from Fox Sports Net), with games being scheduled on an alternating basis with FX. Starting with the 2001 season, FX also obtained rights to games from the MLB Division Series, the only playoff round to which Fox did not hold television rights. Among the games televised on FX was Cal Ripken, Jr.'s final home game with the Baltimore Orioles in September 2001.
ESPN "Monday Night Football" games, both pre-season and season, are broadcast over the air on Fox affiliate WLUK-TV in Green Bay and ABC affiliate WISN-TV (Channel 12) in Milwaukee (ABC affiliate WBAY-TV in Green Bay carried those games from 2006 until 2015; the 2016 season was first where that station has not carried a Packer game in its history), while the stations airing Packers games in the NFL Network "Thursday Night Football" package have varied over the years depending on arrangements for syndication or co-network productions and simulcasts with CBS or NBC. WBAY's evening news anchor Bill Jartz also serves as the public address system announcer for Lambeau Field.
From 1980 until 1987, after which the broadcast rights transferred to KGCT, KOKI-TV held the local syndication rights to broadcast Major League Baseball games from the Kansas City Royals produced by their flagship broadcaster at the time, WDAF-TV. Its relationship with the league expanded in 1985, when carried games involving the St. Louis Cardinals (which were distributed by Anheuser-Busch's sports syndication subsidiary, Bud Sports); after a two-year stint on KGCT, Cardinals telecasts returned to channel 23 for the 1988 season. (All Cardinals telecasts moved to Tulsa Cable Television channel 3 [now Cox-operated YurView Oklahoma], or on channel 20 in the event of conflicts with sporting events carried on the primary public access channel, for the 1990 season.) Both the Cardinals and the Royals have had select games carried on KOKI each season since 1996, through Fox's broadcasting contract with Major League Baseball.
FX aired selected NASCAR events from the NEXTEL Cup Series and NASCAR Busch Series from February to June of each year from 2001 to 2006 as part of Fox's NASCAR television package. However, coverage ended after the June 30, 2006 Busch Series race at Daytona International Speedway. When NASCAR signed its new contract effective in 2007, FX was left out as Fox retained its rights and gained the right to broadcast weather-delayed races that aired on the network.
The channel also aired one game in the Major League Baseball postseason from 2001 to 2005, on the first Wednesday night of League Championship Series week when MLB schedules two games at the same time. On that night, Fox distributed one game to local affiliates based on a regional coverage map, and the other game aired on the corresponding cable affiliate of FX, the main DirecTV or Dish Network channel, or an alternate channel on the satellite services.
The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston metropolitan area. They are a member of the American Football Conference East Division (AFC East). The team began as the Boston Patriots in the American Football League, which merged with the National Football League in 1970. In 1971, the team relocated to Foxborough, where they became the New England Patriots. Since its establishment in 1960, the franchise has selected 64 players in the first round, five of these being the first overall pick.
The Boston College Eagles college football team competes as part of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, representing Boston College in the Atlantic Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC). Boston College has played their home games at Alumni Stadium in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts since 1957. Boston College claims one national championship in 1940, though the NCAA doesn't recognize it, and have played in 22 Bowl Games, winning 13. With 626 wins over 120 seasons of football, Boston College ranks 51st all-time in win-loss records in the NCAA. Boston College played as an Independent until joining the Big East Conference in 1991. Boston College later joined the Atlantic Coast Conference in 2005.
A number of NFL teams and their broadcasting departments have teamed up with CBS Sports to produce games, and those teams includeNew York Jets (WCBS-TV New York), and Green Bay Packers (WGBA-TV Green Bay and co-flagship WTMJ-TV Milwaukee, NBC affiliates, though using NBC's graphics starting in 2012 rather than CBS's; the previous flagship had formerly been WFRV-TV, which was owned by CBS until 2007).
Mandates set in the wake of the AFL–NFL merger in 1970 required that all teams reside in stadiums with at least 50,000 seats. None of the four stadiums the Patriots had used up to that point qualified, and because Boston is one of the oldest and most densely built cities in North America, there was little room in Boston for a new stadium. Rumors began to spread about a possible relocation to Tampa, Florida; these rumors ultimately never came to fruition (Tampa eventually got the Buccaneers instead). In 1971 the Patriots moved into a hastily and inexpensively constructed stadium in suburban Foxborough (also known as Foxboro), on land granted by the Bay State Raceway. The team was renamed the New England Patriots in March 1971, to reflect its new location roughly halfway between Providence and Boston as well as a desire to better position itself as New England's regional NFL team (this would influence the name of the New England Whalers hockey team when they began play in 1972, like the Patriots, labeling themselves a New England team). The original choice, Bay State Patriots, was rejected by the NFL. The stadium, to be known as Schaefer Stadium, was built at a cost of about $7.1 million in only 325 days. The stadium was one of the first stadiums in the country to be named after a corporate sponsor, as the Schaefer Brewing Company paid $150,000 for naming rights. Additionally, the town of Foxborough was one of the first in the country to assess a surtax on every ticket sold.
1956 World Series (4–3): New York Yankees (A.L.) over Brooklyn Dodgers (N.L.)
NBC televised the Series, with announcers Mel Allen (for the Yankees) and Vin Scully (for the Dodgers). In 2006, it was announced that a nearly-complete kinescope recording of the Game 5 telecast (featuring Larsen's perfect game) had been preserved and discovered by a collector. That kinescope recording aired during the MLB Network's first night on the air on January 1, 2009, supplemented with an interview of both Larsen and Yogi Berra by Bob Costas. The first inning of the telecast is still considered lost and was not aired by the MLB Network or included in a subsequent DVD release of the game.
A number of NFL teams and their broadcasting departments have teamed up with CBS Sports to produce games; , these teams include the New York Jets (WCBS-TV in New York City) and Green Bay Packers (WGBA-TV in Green Bay and co-flagship WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee; since former CBS O&O WFRV-TV in Green Bay lost the local rights to the preseason games, Packers coverage on WGBA and WTMJ currently uses NBC's graphics package as both are affiliates of that network, although the telecasts continue to use a CBS technical and announcing team).
The New England Patriots are an American football team based in Foxborough, Massachusetts. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. Originally called the Boston Patriots, the team was founded as one of eight charter members of the American Football League (AFL) in 1960 under the ownership of Billy Sullivan. The team became part of the NFL when the two leagues merged in 1970. The following year, they moved from Boston to nearby Foxborough, and changed their name to the New England Patriots.
An exception to the usual Saturday format occurred on February 2, 2013 (the day before Super Bowl XLVII), when the weekday anchor team hosted from New Orleans (where the game was held at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome), an edition that was branded as simply "CBS This Morning" (instead of "CBS This Morning Saturday") and was formatted similarly to the weekday program, including "EyeOpener" segments at the top of both hours. "CBS This Morning" does not produce a Sunday edition, due to the presence of the long-running "CBS News Sunday Morning", a newsmagazine that debuted in 1979 (and is a remnant of a short-lived reformatting of the original "CBS Morning News" broadcast that lasted until 1982). In contrast to "CBS This Morning", "CBS Sunday Morning" has long led the ratings among the Sunday network morning shows.
In Australia, a trimmed version (for 70 minutes excluding commercials) of the "CBS This Morning" weekday edition currently airs on CBS's sister network (since November 2017) Network Ten, along with regional affiliate WIN Television, weekday mornings from 4am until 6am AEST, with the Friday edition held over to the following Monday. A national weather map of Australia is inserted during local affiliate cutaways for weather. Commercial advertising is inserted instead of the usual cutaway to local news, however, near-simultaneously with the other U.S. "Big Three" television networks' breakfast television programs, with ABC-TV's "Good Morning America" on the Nine Network from 3:30 a.m. and NBC's "Today" airing on the Seven Network from 4 a.m. It is subject to preemption in regional areas for paid and religious programming. Unlike the Nine Network and Seven Network, the weekend edition is not shown.
Greater Boston has more than 100 colleges and universities, with 250,000 students enrolled in Boston and Cambridge alone. The city's largest private universities include Boston University (also the city's fourth-largest employer), with its main campus along Commonwealth Avenue and a medical campus in the South End, Northeastern University in the Fenway area, Suffolk University near Beacon Hill, which includes law school and business school, and Boston College, which straddles the Boston (Brighton)–Newton border. Boston's only public university is the University of Massachusetts Boston on Columbia Point in Dorchester. Roxbury Community College and Bunker Hill Community College are the city's two public community colleges. Altogether, Boston's colleges and universities employ more than 42,600 people, accounting for nearly seven percent of the city's workforce.
In 2006, the Boston Red Sox signed a 10-year radio deal with sister WRKO (also owned by Entercom) for the broadcast rights for the 2007 through 2016 seasons, worth a reportedly $13 million a season. About 30 Red Sox games a season, including all games on Wednesday nights and all weekly day games were heard on WEEI as part of the deal. As of August 26, 2009, WEEI once again became the flagship station for the Red Sox. This occurred two weeks after the debut of competitor WBZ-FM "The Sports Hub" and was seen as a reaction, focusing all Red Sox games on one station, WEEI, rather than splitting them between the station and WRKO.
For the 2016 through 2018 seasons, Neverett worked with Joe Castiglione to broadcast Boston Red Sox games on the Red Sox Radio Network; during this time, Neverett was an employee of WEEI-FM. On December 11, 2018, Neverett advised that he allowed his contract with WEEI-FM to run out and that he would no longer be part of the Red Sox radio broadcast team.
As an example, while Boston Red Sox radio flagship WHDH and St. Louis Cardinals flagship station KMOX both broadcast the 1967 World Series, both stations had to simulcast the NBC Radio Network broadcast along with Boston's WCOP and St. Louis's KSD, the nominal NBC Radio affiliates in those cities.
WSBK-TV (channel 38) in Boston is best known in the market for being the longtime television home of the Boston Red Sox. WSBK became the Red Sox's over-air flagship station in 1975 and continued to carry the team's games for 20 years, until it lost the rights in 1996 to independent station WABU (channel 68, now Ion Television owned-and-operated station WBPX-TV). After a seven-year hiatus, WSBK – in partnership with CBS owned-and-operated sister station WBZ-TV (channel 4) – reassumed over-the-air broadcast rights to the Red Sox in 2003, although its telecasts were limited to Friday night games. Most of the team's games were carried by cable and satellite regional sports network New England Sports Network, which aired the Friday night games outside of the Boston designated market area, effectively resulting in WSBK being blacked out in these areas (the Red Sox maintain an 80% ownership interest in NESN). Among the nationally prominent announcers that have called Red Sox games on the station include Dick Stockton and Sean McDonough. WBZ stopped broadcasting the games after the 2004 season; NESN later announced that WSBK would lose over-the-air rights in early 2006, resulting in the team's game telecasts becoming cable-exclusive.