Best: Fox exploring prime time on Saturdays, including Yankees-Mets

For the first of two times this season, Fox's regional Game of the Week - including Yankees-Mets - will move to prime time, a first for a national broadcast network in the regular season since 2004.

On June 26, they'll do it again, with regional coverage featuring the Yankees at Dodgers.

Officially, this is an experiment. But Fox, working with Major League Baseball, wants to explore turning the notion into a regularly scheduled norm come 2011, at least for a number of Saturdays in the summer.

ABC/ESPN has done well with its weekly Saturday night college football games, and every Saturday night NASCAR race in Fox's history has won its night, including two this year.

Baseball? When a late-afternoon Mets-Cardinals game in April turned into a 20-inning, prime-time epic, ratings soared, a phenomenon Fox Sports president Ed Goren called "sort of an eye-opener.''

MLB executive vice president for business Tim Brosnan said baseball and Fox have had discussions over the years about "what prime-time baseball would look like and what the ratings reality of a Saturday night game would be,'' leading to this year's trial.

There simply are more viewers available at night. But there is a scheduling consequence to consider.

Many fans take advantage of afternoon games to take young children. Between each team's maximum five Sunday night games on ESPN and nine on Fox, attractive draws such as the Yankees and Mets could see their number of weekend afternoon games decrease, even as less popular teams end up with more afternoon games.

"There are some teams that prefer to play at night on Saturdays; it goes both ways,'' Goren said. "And it's not as if we're doing 26 weeks [in prime time].''

For now, all of this is only in the discussion stage; Saturday's numbers will offer more evidence for TV and baseball to chew over. MLB must consider assorted constituents, such as the teams and local channels that carry games.

Another element Fox has suggested is adding a larger number of attractive regional games to the slate each week, further enhancing ratings appeal.

Even if that happened, Fox still would get the same total number of regional games per year, 72. So if more games were added in certain weeks, there would be some Saturdays with no national coverage.

Brosnan said the "prime-time discussion is in its formative stages.'' The notion of expanding the number of exposures in a given window is a separate decision, also in its early stages.

"We're very sensitive to the clubs' needs,'' said Brosnan, who said part of the process is balancing needs of fans watching on TV and those attending in person. "We're trying to be the most fan-friendly we can be.''

A decision likely will come this summer, after the prime- time window in late June.

"We'll see,'' Goren said. "A lot has to happen, so it's far from a given. Nothing happens without the cooperation of baseball buying in, and for that matter, the people who run prime time at Fox.''

Used to be a ballpark there

All of the spirited debate over personal seat licenses, parking passes and the like at New Meadowlands Stadium is fair game, of course.

But with poor, old Giants Stadium rapidly being dismantled next door, it does seem a bit like arguing over the will before the body is cold.

So out of respect, I checked in with Giants president John Mara yesterday. As much as he is a firm believer in the necessity of a new building, he once told me he would shed a tear when the old place fell.

Now that it's almost gone, what is he feeling?

"It saddens me to see the old stadium come down,'' Mara wrote in an e-mail. "More so than I thought it would, maybe because it is coming down piece by piece instead of all at once.

"We have many great memories there.''