The pitch clock, it turns out, was not the only thing that got trimmed this season.

Major League Baseball's estimated linear television advertising revenue fell to $342.3 million through the regular season and early playoff rounds, according to data from iSpot.tv, a measurement firm. That figure represents a substantial decline from the $500.6 million recorded during the same period a year ago — a drop of nearly a third, which is the sort of percentage that makes network sales executives reach for the antacids.

The number of commercial airings told a similar story: 252,322 this year, compared with 433,906 last year, yielding 45.3 billion impressions versus 63.8 billion. (One hesitates to call this a slump, but it is certainly not a hot streak.)

The causes, as is often the case in the media business, are multiple and intertwined. Regional sports networks, long the backbone of local baseball coverage, have been collapsing with some regularity — several have filed for bankruptcy, which tends to reduce their appeal to advertisers. Meanwhile, the audience has been migrating to streaming platforms like Netflix, Apple TV+, Peacock and ESPN's digital offerings, including MLB.TV. And then there is the pitch clock itself, which has shortened games and, with them, the available inventory for commercials.

Among the broadcast and cable networks, the Fox Television Network led the way with $90.5 million in advertising revenue, followed by NBC at $53.6 million in its first season of "Sunday Night Baseball." Fox Sports 1 took in $45 million, ESPN collected $29.3 million, and TBS, which is part of Warner Bros. Discovery, brought in $23.6 million.

The advertisers writing the largest checks included Liberty Mutual, Geico, T-Mobile and Ace Hardware, each spending between $5.2 million and $9.8 million.

Fox's postseason fortunes were not helped by the brevity of certain playoff series — the Milwaukee Brewers dispatched the Los Angeles Dodgers in four games, which is efficient baseball but inefficient television.

The World Series begins later this week, which will add to the totals. Whether it will be enough to make the season look less like a rebuilding year, financially speaking, remains to be seen.

Original story published in MediaPost: "MLB Ad Volume Falls, Revenue Sinks To $342M"