Watching the Phillies will be much more difficult in 2014, if you are without cable. Under the Phillies new television deal, NBC Universal has most of the control of the games. Of course, they are keeping most of them under their own control.
Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer had the Phillies television schedule breakdown:
Phillies on TV: CSN (140 games), NBC10 (12 games), TCN (9 games), FOX (1 game).
— Matt Gelb (@magelb) January 23, 2014
So, getting to see the Phillies on free television every Sunday is a thing of the past. One may assume that the games that will be seen on NBC10 will be predominantly Sunday
The Phillies pre-game and post-game shows formerly carried by PHL-17 are likely a thing of the past. Hosted in 2013 by Mike Missanelli, John Clark, and Larry Bowa, Comcast SportsNet will likely use their own hosts instead, since NBC 10 and Comcast Sports Net are both NBC-owned. Clark will be shifting from an NBC 10 sports reporter to a Comcast SportsNet. Vai Sikahema was already reassigned as morning news anchor and the station never replaced third anchor Howard Eskin when he departed for FOX 29.
Notably missing are the usual supply of national games. The Phillies are scheduled for just one FOX game in 2014, and ESPN is scheduled for none. During the second half of the season, ESPN may add the Phillies to the schedule, but as of right now, the Phillies will not be seen on Sunday Night Baseball. Just a few years ago, the Phillies would have been a primetime target for national broadcasts, and the decline is to be expected. But, for a top-five media market to be almost completely left out is surprising.
