Baseball on Network TV

Rudy Martzke's column in USA Today's sports section contains an interesting note about the ratings of baseball's post season and Fox's income vs. the cost to Fox for its initial contract outlay and the money it takes to produce and broadcast over teh course of the season.

....after a $225 million write-down on baseball last year, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch has said Fox's rights fee in the next deal starting in 2007 will have to drop considerably. Fox might have to split baseball with a second network.

It's an interesting thought, and one I'm not entirely unhappy about. I think I may be the only person who's not happy about the way Fox produces baseball over the course of the regular season and especially not in the post-season. I disagree strongly with Rudy Martzke grading announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver as high as he did, and especially with the Direction: How many times during the Series did Fox spend a half inning or even an inning talking to some celebrity? I remember Robin Williams in one game, and Michael Strahan in another.

So many times during the telecasts, I felt like baseball was the second highest priority for the broadcast, behind either which celebrities were sitting in the stands, or which show from the new season of Fox Television we should be excited about....and given Fox's propensity for putting castmembers from the shows in the stands, it was usually both of those two things.

But that aside, here's my question:

What are the obstacles to making a deal kind of like the NFL has: Splitting the AFC and NFC between CBS and Fox, respectively? Would it be counterproductive to try to split the TV deal along the lines of National League and American League?

Just thinking out loud.