Seattle Sports host Mike Salk believes Major League Baseball missed a high-profile promotional opportunity during the Super Bowl, criticizing the league for failing to advertise its new broadcast relationship with NBC Sports on the biggest television stage of the year.
During Tuesday’s episode of Brock and Salk on Seattle Sports, Salk questioned why MLB did not capitalize on the conclusion of the Super Bowl to spotlight Sunday Night Baseball, which will air on NBC as part of the network’s newly acquired MLB package.
“Major League Baseball swung and missed Sunday night at the Super Bowl,” Salk said. “Why were there no promos, no nothing during and especially after the Super Bowl for the Sunday Night Baseball on NBC? What are we doing?”
The criticism centered on timing and visibility, two factors that Salk argued should matter deeply to a league often searching for ways to broaden its reach. The Super Bowl routinely draws more than 100 million viewers, including casual sports fans who may not actively ponder about baseball coverage in February.
For Salk, the absence of any MLB messaging during or immediately following the broadcast represented a failure to connect the end of football season with the traditional ramp-up to baseball.
NBC’s Super Bowl broadcast marked the network’s first opportunity to showcase its upcoming baseball coverage since finalizing its deal with MLB. However, viewers saw no promotional bridge from football’s finale to baseball’s approach, even as spring training nears and the sport prepares to reenter the national conversation.
“Baseball should have 1,000% had a commercial airing the second the Super Bowl ended, saying we got next,” Salk said.
Salk suggested that MLB should have treated the moment as symbolic, reinforcing the idea that baseball naturally follows football on the American sports calendar. In his view, a simple, assertive message would have helped reset attention toward the sport.
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