MASN released their broadcast schedule for the Nationals this week. And it looks pretty much like the Nats schedule, only with some channels under the times. I counted 18 games against the Mets, 13 of which are in HD. So that might be alot of highly defined Johan. Against Atlanta, there are 12 games in HD, which would be much more exciting if this was 1994. Also in HD are the 3 home games against the O’s. Strangely, the 3 games in Baltimore are not only listed in regular def, they are on said to be on MASN2. Then you go to the O’s schedule, the opposite is listed. Must be talking about which broadcast team gets which channel, so I guess those of us with nice TVs will be watching Jim Hunter and Buck Martinez in the booth for those 3 games in BMore, hon.
In terms of games against division rivals not in NY or Atlanta, there are some, but not as many. They play 18 games against each of the other NL East teams, but if you only watch the higher channels, you may not know it. Against the Marlins and the Phillies only 3 games against each team are in HD. I’m disappointed that last season’s NL East winner has so few games in HD on MASN, but at least I won’t have to watch Philly fans. Anyway, this is all a good start, I am not sure why it takes a few years to ramp up the number of games, but 40 HD games is better than none.
Where do I see these games?
I was all excited about the HD capabilities of MASN, but I was a little concerned about where I’d be able to watch it. I know my cable provider, Comcast, has had some past battles with MASN. Nowhere on my Comcast digital cable guide is there a MASN-HD, and I don’t expect Comcast to just create a new channel in 30 days. Thankfully, the situation seems to have a temporary fix for this season. According to the Washington Examiner’s Sports Media Blog, the MASN games will be shown on… [drumroll] the MOJO network! This officially vaults MOJO up to the top of my best channel lineup, the combination of Nats games and my favorite TV show, Three Sheets, may be too much for me to handle. As long as Nats games don’t knock Zane Lamprey and Pleepleus off the air too much, I’m good with this setup. For games scheduled to be broadcast on MY20, they will most likely be on WDCA-DT or whatever the high def version of the channel that has been called everything from DC20 to UPN20 to DCA20 since I was a kid. The few times that the above schedule on MASN lists HD games to be on MASN2, the Orioles games are NOT in HD those days. So I am assuming even though the O’s will be on Standard-D MASN, the Nats will be on MOJO that day. The Examiner blog entry also notes that Comcast’s goal for 2009 is to have a dedicated HD channel for both MASN and CSN+. This is good news, from what I understand there is limited space or bandwidth or whatever they call it, so us sports fans gotta hope we’re top priority.