A brief history of MLB websites and media through MLB.com

A lot has changed in the world in the last 25 years and a lot has changed in the MLB world in the last 25 years too. Back in 1996, MLB only had 28 teams because the Tampa Bay Rays (formerly the Tampa Bay Devil Rays) and the Arizona Diamondbacks didn’t exist as they came to be in 1998. For the media world, you were not reading this article because our company, FanSided, didn’t exist until 2009 and this site, Call To The Pen, didn’t exist until 2010.

Back in 1996, you weren’t going to read much at all about MLB. MLB.com didn’t exist until 1995 and your favorite columnist or beat writer was at a newspaper. Until 2001, a year after Commissioner Bud Selig created MLBAM (MLB Advanced Media), MLB didn’t have beat writers covering games for a team. Each team ran their website individually, much like how they do on Twitter in today’s age. However, most MLB sites were like how most websites were in 1996: bare bones.

The Montreal Expos site in 1996 looks much different than an MLB site now

Case in point, check out the picture in the tweet below to see how an MLB team site looked like. This was the Montreal Expos site in 1996.

The Expos relocated to Washington, D.C. and are now the Washington Nationals. The Nationals logo was created by the man who tweeted the picture, Todd Radom.

Since the team was in Montreal, this is the version of the site that was in English but it was originally written in French, the primary language in Montreal.

It just had a quick recap of the most recent game, a few links for other box scores, and tickets and that was about it.

As Houston Astros radio broadcaster Robert Ford noted in a tweet responding to the picture, MLB teams often had a link to their radio broadcast on their site … for free. Now, with MLB Advanced Media, you have to pay to listen.

At the time as well, there were no highlights to watch. In fact, many games were not televised. For example, the Baltimore Orioles were a team that broadcast more games than others and in 1996, they broadcast their games as most teams did: between two stations (one local TV news station and one cable station). Between the two stations, they combined to broadcast 116 games. FOX and ESPN covered some games too but far from all games were televised.

Some teams, like the Cincinnati Reds, did not broadcast all of their games until very recently. The Reds only started broadcasting all games (that weren’t nationally televised) in 2018 (in 2017, they only did 145 games. The 17 games that weren’t broadcast were often weekday, day games). The Reds only started broadcasting 100+ games per season in 2003.

Currently, MLB.com looks like it did in the late 1990s due to the lockout but during labor peace, it is a website that you can get lost in stats, video, bios, and other stuff for days but not so long ago, it wasn’t much at all.