Several Major League Baseball teams have historically carried their games on superstations, which are broadcast television stations that are distributed on a regional or national basis on cable and satellite television.
American League
Boston Red Sox
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.
Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox's game broadcast were originally televised by WGN-TV (channel 9) for 20 seasons from 1948 – the station signed on in April of that year – to 1967. The team's game telecasts moved to then-upstart independent station WFLD (channel 32, now a Fox owned-and-operated station) – which, like WGN-TV, carried White Sox games on more than occasion – in 1968. WGN-TV regained broadcast rights for the White Sox in 1973, and entered into a contractual agreement with then-competing independent WSNS-TV (channel 44, now a Telemundo owned-and-operated station) to have that station carry select games, an arrangement that lasted through the 1980 season. WGN-TV became the exclusive television broadcaster of White Sox games in 1981, before WFLD re-obtained broadcast rights the following year. After an eight-year run on WFLD, the White Sox returned to WGN-TV in 1990 after co-owner Jerry Reinsdorf agreed to long-term deals with the station for both the Sox and his NBA franchise, the Chicago Bulls.
WGN-TV would enter into a programming arrangement with independent station WCIU-TV (channel 26) in July 1999 for that station to carry select White Sox, Chicago Bulls and Chicago Cubs games within the Chicago market that WGN is under contract to produce and air; the agreement was the result of network affiliation contracts with WGN-TV (first with The WB at the time the WCIU deal was made, and now with The CW) limit the number of programming preemptions allowed each year, as well as due to rights restrictions put in place by the National Basketball Association which limit the number of Bulls telecasts aired on WGN's national superstation feed (now known as WGN America) to only fifteen games per season.
Similarly to the Chicago Cubs, White Sox telecasts on WGN America ended in 2014 with the channel's switch to reruns and original programs. The White Sox left WGN-TV after the 2019 season; since 2020, NBC Sports Chicago has aired all White Sox games that are not exclusive to MLB's national broadcasters.
Detroit Tigers
WKBD (channel 50, now a CW owned-and-operated station), which was distributed throughout Michigan as a regional superstation and served as the default Fox affiliate for much of the state until WJBK-TV (channel 2) switched to the network from CBS in December 1994, obtained the broadcast rights to Detroit Tigers baseball games in 1993; the station carried the games from 1994 to 2005. One of the notable Tigers games aired by WKBD was the team's final game played at Tiger Stadium on September 27, 1999.