MLB Network has reportedly signed former MLB manager, executive and baseball analyst Bo Porter to a three-year deal to join the network and offer his decades of expertise to the midweek game, in studio and MLB Tonight coverage.
“I am honored and grateful for the opportunity to join the MLB Network Broadcast team,” Porter told The Shadow League on Thursday. “I look forward to sharing my 28-plus years of experience as a MLB player, coach, manager, executive and analyst while covering America’s favorite pastime on the number one network for baseball.”
Bo Porter Academy
Bo is a font of baseball knowledge and the founder of Bo Porter Academy, where 75 select minority baseball talents from across the country attend junior high and high school at the facility Porter has built to help develop the next generation of Black, educated baseball stars and positive, strong-minded contributors to society.
Porter has held numerous positions throughout baseball and understands the game from every perspective. He’s also the author of several books.
Running The Show
As a former Houston Astros manager, Porter purged the club’s losing culture in less than two seasons, was fired and never managed again. The former Astros skipper received countless texts, social media posts, and fan mail, congratulating him for laying the foundation, developing young talent and babysitting a dumpster fire during the 2013-14 seasons before the many jewels of the team’s farm system burst into World Series form by 2017.
With no immediate offers on the table for a young baseball mind who is known for team building and doing more with less, Bo remained in pro baseball, expanded the scope of his professional trajectory and has become a vessel transporting the game into the future.
Porter, 49, holds the prestigious position of MLB director of coaching development and has served as special assistant to GM and former third base/outfield and base running coach for the Atlanta Braves.
No.1 Baseball Network In The World
As one of four new talents on the network, Bo can speak to his experienced as a MLB player and one of a handful of Black managers in MLB history.
(Bo Porter/FB)
Bo is very active in MLB’s diversity programs which promote mental health and provide pro level tutelage and increased visibility and educational opportunities for minority student-athletes who play baseball.
As MLB’s director of coaching, Porter has an obligation to help provide minority athletes with the highest caliber of fundamental training and state of the art mentoring and facilities while working with Del Matthews, Tony Reagins, Jerry Manuel and the masterminds of the Breakthrough Series, Dream Series and Hank Aaron Invitational — all of MLB’s minority pipeline programs, which have helped increase the number of African-Americans drafted in the past half decade by more than 20 percent according to MLB PR.
READ: Homegrown Black Talent Dominated The 2019 MLB Draft – The Shadow League
Inspiring, educating, and nurturing future generations of ballplayers is Bo’s passion. If he’s not working in his field, he’s trying to even out the playing field for kids like him, who grew up in a single-mom home in Newark, New Jersey, played football and baseball at Iowa University and crafted a career that has elevated him to one of the most influential Black minds in the “business and development” of baseball.
His reach extends to the grassroots levels as well as the Founding President & CEO of Bo Porter’s Future All-Stars Baseball Development Academy in Rosharon, Texas. So everything he does in life is connected to baseball in a spiritual, healthy and productive way.
During spring training in 2018 he orchestrated and ran the MLB Players Association free agent camp. In 2019, he got a broadcast gig with the Washington Nationals on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), where he offered brilliant insight and personal perspective to the broadcast. Bo also has a familiarity with the players in the game and his contributions and in-studio energy was invaluable as the Nationals shocked the world and won the franchise’s first World Series title.
Porter’s media work also includes appearances on MLB Central and previous appearances on MLB Network.
As well as being the founder and EIC of CORE Magazine, a digital and print-on-demand magazine. CORE (Champions Of Real Excellence) offers engaging stories uniquely targeting a well-read, diverse audience of business owners, sports enthusiasts, forward-thinking leaders aspiring growth and those who want to make a difference in the lives of others through their philanthropic platforms.
Bo’s addition to the MLB Network rotation is a huge win for the channel, as he represents a large cross section of baseball fans and is a culture-driver and sound adviser to the future of baseball.
