|
|
|
|
Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Sunday, October 31, 2010
The World Series Nobody Wanted isn’t beyond salvage. With a little bit of pluck, the San Francisco Giants and Texas Rangers can push past Sunday and Monday, when they will hemorrhage much of their audience to the NFL, and move onto an exciting Game 6 and perhaps 7.
...
For all the gaudy attendance numbers put up in the regular season, MLB’s inability to retain casual fans during the postseason is harrowing. Baseball has turned into an April-to-September pastime, one with such strong regional ties that it backfires when the sport goes national. As inconsequential as television ratings are to anybody beyond Fox, they provide an unbiased barometer of interest, and their verdict is clear: This series needs a jolt of excitement, pronto.
For what it’s worth, I was utterly bored by a Yankees-Phillies World Series.
|
Support BBTF
Thanks to
Francis
for his generous support.
Bookmarks
You must be logged in to view your Bookmarks.
Hot Topics
Newsblog: Maddon on Red Sox beaning Luke Scott: 'I think it's ridiculous, I think it's absurd, idiotic' (1 - 7:23am, May 26)Last: zachtomaNewsblog: The Hall of Very Good: Former Cards Slugger Critical of "LaRussa's Regime" (6 - 7:16am, May 26)Last: Shooty: Applying to be Fearless LeaderNewsblog: Matschulat: Did I Miss The "Paul Konerko Is So Overrated OMG" Bandwagon? (30 - 7:15am, May 26)Last: baudibNewsblog: CSN to host ‘Phillies at the Beach’ on Memorial Day (19 - 7:11am, May 26)Last: GodNewsblog: T.R. Sullivan: Of Frank Robinson, Milt Pappas and Jim Palmer (10 - 7:09am, May 26)Last: GodNewsblog: Bud Selig -- No need for more MLB replay for now - ESPN (88 - 6:12am, May 26)Last: LassusNewsblog: HP: Baseball is leaving the human factor behind (59 - 5:24am, May 26)Last: bjhankeNewsblog: OT: NBA Monthly Thread, May 2012 (1834 - 3:06am, May 26)Last: SpiveyNewsblog: Himrich’s Top Ten Target Field Foods (8 - 2:43am, May 26)Last: Long John McCaine Mutiny on the Bounty (scott)Newsblog: Boston.com: Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios lays off all staff (119 - 1:28am, May 26)Last: Swedish ChefNewsblog: Wilmoth: Nate McLouth Designated For Assignment (12 - 12:25am, May 26)Last: TriponHall of Merit: Most Meritorious Player: 1973 Discussion (15 - 12:13am, May 26)Last: DanGHall of Merit: Most Meritorious Player: 1972 Ballot (28 - 11:25pm, May 25)Last: lieiamSox Therapy: A Winning Ballclub? (20 - 11:24pm, May 25)Last: DanNewsblog: TBO: Nerdy Rays head north (17 - 10:07pm, May 25)Last: PreservedFish
|
|
Reader Comments and Retorts
Go to end of page
Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
Fortunately coinciding with the April-to-September schedule the teams play.
All that having been said, I think the second paragraph of that excerpt shows real insight from Passan. I hadn't thought of this before, but the man's correct.
FOX kind of self-actualized that by making their "game of the week" regional and blacking out all the other games, did it not?
The game, in person at the stadium, is still great to watch. But, the game displayed on television no longer looks like the game I see at the ballpark.
If any other TV show, on any network, anywhere, had shed viewers like Major League Baseball has shed viewers over the years, everyone associated with the production would be fired. If the next production crew couldn't improve the numbers, out they would go, too. Until they found something people would actually watch. But not baseball productions. The game on TV, zoomed in at maximum camera strength, is dying a boring death. I have a 50 inch high def television, and what I get to see is a 45 inch pitcher's face. Over and over and over.
Sorry, but it's true.
I was waiting for the author's bias to be revealed. The "baseball is an April - September regional sport" argument is something I can understand. The "The Yankees / Red Sox / Cubs / Phillies aren't involved" argument is simply stupid.
If any other TV show, on any network, anywhere, had shed viewers like Major League Baseball has shed viewers over the years, everyone associated with the production would be fired.
Agreed.
My feeling is that they'd be fired if this were baseball on NBC. The powers that be over at FOX sports simply don't care for quality.
Game 3 earned the second-lowest television rating for a World Series game. [from #10, thanks]
Interesting, and not surprising. I'd like to see the ratings numbers from Game 4.
Reading this article made me wonder why MLB didn't simply postpone Game 3 of the 2008 World Series. I don't understand baseball's fascination with playing October games past midnight.
So a tiny sample of the audience is less interested in Game 3 of this 2-0 series than in any other game of any other World Series in any history. That likely means that viewers don't like SF vs. Dallas/Ft. Worth, or they don't like yet another lopsided Series, or both. But I don't think it means this is the worst (i. e. worst-marketed) series ever.
First, this is not 1980. The number of viewing options available to TV viewers is phenomenally greater than then. Second, if MLB promotes the Yankees, Sox, and Phillies the whole season long, of course TV ratings will drop if none of them is in the Series. MLB needs to recognize that any playoff team can make the World Series, and should promote the 6-8 teams with the best records instead of the 3-4 biggest-market good teams. Third, you're saying an exciting Series will draw more fans than one that isn't? That's not groundbreaking analysis there.
Essentially a self-selecting sample, eh? Interesting. I'll have to admit that I don't know that much about the Nielsen rating system. The more I learn, the more surprised I am.
But I don't think it means this is the worst (i. e. worst-marketed) series ever.
Agreed. I'm also surprised that articles about Game 3's horrible ratings don't mention the Cablevision / FOX fiasco.
According to this article, Game 4 had even lower ratings. I guess we can blame ABC's college football, though the USC - Oregon game got relatively abysmal ratings as well. Was there some cable show or other major sporting event on Saturday night that I'm not aware of?
I'm also confused as to why the numbers from this article don't agree with the numbers in #10.
Thank you. I've never understood the need for "travel dates" in an age when you can fly coast to coast in a few hours, and when teams often play for 20 straight days in the regular season. If there's anything "wrong" with baseball, it's this neverending pursuit of the last marginal dollar at the expense of all other considerations, even when it results in grotesque spectacles like games played in freezing rain downpours and the like.
Another benefit to this suggestion which our "baseball purist" friends should appreciate would be that it would reward pitching depth, as opposed to disproportionately rewarding the quality of the first two starters.
-------------------
Of course that last quote is nothing but the generic version of the first two. I often get the feeling that some of these so-called "fans" find it morally objectionable to allow the two teams that actually win their respective LCS the opportunity to play in the World Series.
-------------------
Reading this article made me wonder why MLB didn't simply postpone Game 3 of the 2008 World Series. I don't understand baseball's fascination with playing October games past midnight.
Because they'd rather give the small minority of western viewers the opportunity to watch the first part of the game rather than let the vast majority of eastern viewers be able to wrap it up before that midnight hour.
Because they don't want to face open rebellion from the local stations who get rich from selling ads for the syndicated shows they run in the 7-8 time slot.
Because baseball is run by bean counters rather than by baseball people, bean counters with the mentality of a Fortune 500 CEO whose sole concern is the bottom line.
Every one of the above three statements is so blatantly true that the only counter-arguments are ideological rather than factual, and amount to little more than a Stockholm Syndromish identification with those who establish and accept these conditions. You know, the good old "it's not your money" cliche and all that.
Rangers! Be there!".
Do Ryan Howard's subway commercials simultaneously advertise the actual sport he plays like the countless beer, Sprint and Mastercard commercials do the NFL? No.
What about those Pujols Wheaties Fuel commercials? Sort of, but not really.
Really, the only Baseball-related commercial that I can think of in recent memory that got me pumped was the Griffey commercial from around the All-Star Break. And even then, it featured footage of a player that just retired.
Oh, and on a unrelated note, Brian Wilson would be great for a Old Spice commercial. I heavily suggest somebody at MLB bribe some people to make this happen.
*I once met someone who works at NFL Films. Apparently they win so many Emmys that some people use them as doorstops around the office, at least that's what was told to me.
Well, it was Saturday night, I guess that makes it all right.
Saturday night's alright for fighting, get a little action in.
Another Saturday night, and I ain't got nobody.
S-A! T-U-R! D-A-Y! Night!
Actually, my database of hit records (across all charts: pop, rock, country, R&B, etc.) lists 45 different songs with "Saturday Night" in the title...including "Texas Saturday Night", a minor country hit for Bill Green in 1976.
Chasing the rating for the perfectly dramatized final episode of a 75-part miniseries is not a workable business plan. Not that we'd ever read that in the identical "worst ratings ever" article every year.
According to tvbythenumbers.com, this past Saturday's Second-Lowest-Rated World Series Broadcast Of All Time came in first for the night's Nielsens. The all-important 18-49 rating/share was 6.4/22. That's the total rating for all four networks... combined. It's a different world, it's a different world, it's a different world.
This is true. Remember that for years there was no cable TV to compete with, and for years no internet. I wonder what the ratings for the 1975 World Series would have been like if Cable/Satellite was around at the time.
This presumes that the number of people who decide to turn on their TV sets and watch network fare is independent of the quality of the network fare. That's a dubious proposition. Cable and ESPN were everywhere by 1991 and Twins/Braves did high 20s and 35 (or 32 or whatever it was) in Game 7.
Essentially nothing baseball and the media do conditions the audience during the baseball season to be excited by Giants/Rangers at the end of the baseball season. The culprits include:
1. Constantly equating payrolls and success, such that teams below the top 3-4 payrolls are seen as inherently inferior.
2. Constantly harping about the Yankees and Red Sox and Cubs, such that teams other than them are seen as inherently inferior.
3. Casting Derek Jeter as somehow the greatest thing to ever happen to both baseball and postseason baseball, rendering all other players inherently inferior.
The Giants are a cool team on a cool run with a cool history that plays in a cool city and a cool stadium. Their best pitcher is a midget who looks like the 14-year-old stoner from Dazed and Confused ... and, oh, he's already won two Cy Young Awards. They haven't won the World Series since Willie Mays was 23. If MLB and FOX and ESPN can't sell that, and the docile masses aren't able to think anything that doesn't come from a cue and a come-on from MLB/FOX/ESPN, at some point you have to just say #### 'em.
For all the gaudy attendance numbers put up in the regular season, MLB’s inability to retain casual fans during the postseason is harrowing. Baseball has turned into an April-to-September pastime, one with such strong regional ties that it backfires when the sport goes national.
The very definition of self-inflicted wound. Since baseball has declined from a sport of national interest to a niche pleasure, college football (without question) has grown from a regional taste to a sport of national interest, including national TV interest. The NBA (not without question) has done the same.
I just figured out who Brian Wilson reminds me of: the carpenter in the Fawlty Towers episode, the one who Basil gets Manuel to call "a hideous Orang-Utan."
Athletic (#12), it's true that only a tiny percentage of homes have actual Nielsen meters. But the sample is validated by a much wider system of polling. For a while I used to be one of those polled; I'd get a little notebook to jot down what I was watching (almost entirely major-league baseball, as I recall :) and I mailed the notebook back to Nielsen; they'd also call me once in a while and ask a wide range of questions about my interests and behavior. Unless it was just somebody my ex-wife hired to check up on me.
Anyway, I think the Nielsen system is probably as accurate as any other large-scale polling operation.
As far as advertiser demands go, it's probably true that traditional commercial-break ads have suffered with the advent of recorders that skip them. But by contrast, I think a lot more revenue is now generated by stadium signage. Time was, the basic stadium sign was Hit Sign Win Suit or something and 10,000 people would see it at every game. Now, the panoply of various and shifting electronic signs is greatly elaborated. And those signs persist in recorded images for a long time. The appeal to advertisers is "your sign is going to figure in video of this World Series that people will keep seeing for decades," and I would imagine the price has gone up accordingly.
There are flaws in the coverage and flaws in the marketing but the short series, and Erik's point in #2 about bad games are pretty substantial.
the 1-5, sad-sack Cowboys who nonetheless hog the sporting landscape ... second fiddle in its own city
It's a subjective impression, but I don't see any indication that people around here are ignoring the Series in favor of bad mid-season NFL football. The Stadium tends to sell out, and it holds twice as many people as the Ballpark, which has also been sold out lately. (Lots of fans are trying to catch two games in one day at both venues; "sports-mad" is accurate.) But media attention and local interest has been huge for the Rangers. IOW TerpNats is right: there's substantial interest here for any sport that's going, and it's absolutely the Rangers' hour at the top.
For a child of the seventies, this is just amazing. I mean, let's look at 1980..."The Love Boat" had a 24.3 rating all by itself...four times ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox combined in 2010. Are there really that many more choices, or do the old networks just suck that much?
Has any media spokesman since Graham McNamee actually compared any team unfavorably to the CUBS???? But maybe you meant "inherently less comical."
Yes, and yes. You can walk and chew gum, etc.
Yes.
Inherently less worthy of turning on your TV and watching in October.
No, it's just that The Love Boat was really that compelling. It was probably the episode where Laurence Olivier cast himself overboard after being jilted by Vanessa Redgrave.
Baseball just needs to hire Pete Rose as its postseason marketing director to compete.
This is just wrong.
You can say baseball has become more regionally/locally based, but, you do not generate the highest revenue and attendence of any pro sport as a "niche pleasure". To think the NBA is of more interest nationally is laughable.
I do admit that post-season baseball is not that compelling with two random teams. I haven't watched more than about 5 innings of the world series, despite being a huge baseball fan and daily poster here.
I think it's a combination of the game pace, and the drawn out schedule that does it. I'm fairly certain I'll never be awake for the end of a game, so why bother.
Passan has identified the problem right here. Neither of these teams has any big stars.
Cliff Lee? He's been on four teams in two years.
Tim Lincecum? He pitches for a West-Coast team.
Vlad? Hasn't had a great season since 2007.
Michael Young? Ian Kinsler? These are good players, but not stars.
Buster Posey? Not a long enough career to get in the Public Eye.
Nobody knows who these people are, why should they be interested?
It's not, but its fans have much more interest in out-of-market teams, particularly in watching them on television. Baseball's revenue and attendance are simply the sum total of regional revenues and attendance, to a far greater extent than any other major sport.
It's rather embarrassing that so many of the fans who eat and shop at the various mallparks (and historically significant sites of interest) care so little about who actually wins ... you know ... the sport's championship.(**) Though, to be fair, among its multitude of sins, FOX does a horrible job of promoting the World Series as the series that decides the champion of the sport.
(**) The recession of this interest is the most intriguing storyline in the ratings discussion, more than the impact of cable/internet/satellite growth, which has called forth a multitude of cliches. It's pretty clear that millions of people turned on their TV sets to watch Phillies/Royals back in the day because the winner would be the champion of baseball.
Yes, MLB is regional, but it's really, really successful regionally. Again attendence is very high, as are local TV ratings. Maybe people enjoy baseball more for the process (the summer long saga) than for the outcome.
I agree they need to figure out the national marketing for the sport in general, and the playoffs in particular. But that would be the proverbial cherry on top.
The sport is still in a really good spot economically.
The same appears to be true of European football leagues in recent years. You have your team, and if they're not in the hunt for silverware, then 'Meh'.
They were all at the Saturday Night Fish Fry with Louis Jordan and his Tympani Five.
What MLB needs is better freaking marketing.
Baseball did have a great (non-television) marketing tool not long ago: The Sporting News. It was the glue that held a lot of different parts together. Nothing has come along since to replace it since it went south.
A much more dubious proposition is that nothing on network TV -- not a single show or special -- is of superior quality to previous installments thereof, or in most cases to the average, mid-level programming of the 1970s. Because no show or special, from the Super Bowl on down, pulls the numbers of old. (The idea that ratings numbers are proportional to quality is also an interesting premise.)
Fox and MLB regularly squander and bungle their promotional opportunities. That does not wipe away the larger reality that those ratings numbers are never coming back.
Speaking of Vanessa Redgrave (#35), her sister Lynn was on a shortlived sitcom called "Chicken Soup." In 1989, ABC cancelled the show after two months for failing to hold enough of "Roseanne"s audience. "Chicken Soup"s average rating (which was falling) was 15.9/26.
The two Games Seven of the 2003 and 2004 ALCS averaged an 18.1 Nielsen rating. Twenty years ago, the Cincinnati Reds' sweep of the A's averaged a 20.7.
I would suggest that the Internet has done this for some. BTF is my TSN.
I hear this complaint a lot on here, and while I'm no fan of FOX's production techniques, I don't think they have much of anything to do with why people aren't tuning in.
There's that much more choices now. Everyone has their own niche network now. Teens all watch MTV, women all watch TLC, and grumpy old men all watch History Channel. If anything, network TV is much, much better now than 30 years ago (Love Boat? Seriously?) but the competition is so widespread, ratings will inevitably drop.
The cable landscape in 1991 is not in the same universe as the cable landscape now. In 1991, you had MTV, and a few cable channels showing either educational stuff (what TLC used to be) or running bad old movies (USA Network). Now you have tons of quality original programming, first-run movies, and popular "reality" shows. The ratings on basic cable are much, much higher now than they were in 1991.
Bring back the syndicated Saturday morning show The Baseball Bunch. It cost MLB next to nothing to produce and it played everywhere.
A much more dubious proposition is that nothing on network TV -- not a single show or special -- is of superior quality to previous installments thereof, or in most cases to the average, mid-level programming of the 1970s. Because no show or special, from the Super Bowl on down, pulls the numbers of old. (The idea that ratings numbers are proportional to quality is also an interesting premise.)
It's simply not the case that sports on network TV have seen declines in ratings akin to those of MLB's since the peak in 1980. Sports like college football are far more appealing now than then, as we see by ABC introducing a prime-time Saturday night game a couple years ago.
There's more to MLB ratings cratering than Fox's poor presentation; as noted, interest in the sport qua sport has declined pretty significantly. It's become a regional taste where other sports have nationalized.(**)
(**) A development that strikes me as highly counter-intuitive; with the increase in real-time media and commentary, it's now much easier to closely follow teams like, say, the San Diego Padres. Contrast and compare someone growing up in a midwestern AL city in the 70s, for whom a perfectly worthy response to rumors of the moon landing being phonied up would be, "Well, maybe it's true ... is there any real evidence that the San Diego Padres actually exist?"
Regularly beaten by "Cops" and "America's Most Wanted."
It's not, but its fans have much more interest in out-of-market teams, particularly in watching them on television.
Is that really true? Are casual NBA fans all that more interested in watching the Lakers or the Spurs (a few years ago) in the finals every year than casual baseball fans are interested in watching the Yankees or Red Sox? Doesn't the NBA get the same "Oh, no! Texas and San Francisco!" complaint if teams like Orlando or Cleveland make it to the finals?
You speak as if whether or not a team has a national following is just a random fact of the universe. The only teams with "national followings" by this standard are the Yankees, Red Sox, and Cubs. The Giants are one of the most storied franchises in the sport, and the Rangers play in one of the biggest markets. It's the job of MLB and Fox to make those nationally compelling, at least for a couple of weeks.
The NCAA manages to get people to tune into Princeton-West Virginia in round 1 of the NCAA Tournament. This should be child's play by comparison.
And it sure is interesting to see the Phillies now viewed as one of the "desirable" teams, something that certainly wasn't true four years ago. But then, if any team slipped to .500 status and out of the playoffs for a few years -- yea, even the hallowed Yankees and Red Sox -- they'd fall off the list.
You have to begin the push during the season, and while by August it was apparent that, barring a collapse, the Rangers would be among those 6 to 8 teams, the Giants were in a three-way dogfight for the West. (San Diego and Colorado weren't promoted then, either.)
And let's not forget Frank Sinatra's 1945 recording "Saturday Night (Is The Loneliest Night Of The Week)," perhaps his first up-tempo post-Dorsey hit. ("All Or Nothing At All" was actually cut with Harry James' orchestra in 1939, before Sinatra joined Dorsey, and sold a few thousand copies; it was reissued in 1943, during the Petrillo musicians' recording strike, and became massively popular.)
I'm missing the economic imperatives that put MLB in the position of Fox's p!ssboy. FOX's ratings and presentation suck, FOX has run postseason baseball on TV into the ground; is FOX somehow overpaying MLB ... and doesn't MLB have any other reasonable alternatives?
Except it isn't just Princeton vs WVA, it is 32 games over two days, with more or less each section of the United States represented in each time slot.
The game did not resume until Wednesday because the rain that came on Monday continued to Tuesday resulting in a "rain out" of the resumption of Game Five.
This is important (and not just because no one will listen to me about the landings.) Someone above called out the "my team's out so I'm done watching for the year" sentiment that's becoming more common, and a lot of that is because it's so much easier to follow a team or player. In fact, there's such a huge amount of coverage available these days that it's almost easier to follow some individual entity than it is to follow baseball more generally. There's too much out there to casually consume it, and outlets have to go to finer and finer levels of detail to differentiate their coverage on a day to day basis. For special events like post-season play or Opening Day they whip up a few frothy generalist pieces, but mostly the daily coverage is large enough to displace the rest of the sport.
And of course this is true for other sports as well. And of course they all have the same trouble in the post-season as baseball, where playoffs drag on and viewers do not. The only exception is football, and that's largely a result of many fewer games in selected and groomed timeslots.
The 1969 game between #1 Texas and #2 Arkansas had a 50 share. The 1971 game between #1 Nebraska and #2 Oklahoma attracted 55 million viewers. The 1987 Fiesta Bowl between #1 Miami and #2 Penn State had a 25.1 rating. The BCS championship broadcast has never approached any of these numbers.
College Football's attractiveness to the general population I think is widely exaggerated, as Gonfalon has exhibited. I say this as someone who watches 14 hours of college football on 3 TVs simultaneously each Saturday. Perhaps it is of function of me being the outlier, always living in cities that view college football as a novelty as the home town team plays on Sundays, but college football is the ultimate regional sport.
Further, I don't think the way they settle things via the BCS Championship Game has any impact on its interest. It may, to a degree, depress interest in certain bowl games. The Orange Bowl, as a brand, has been destroyed by the creation of the BCS.
Right, but people don't just watch their "home" teams. Lots of people watch every game, or at least as many as they can fit in.
We're on the same page. There are 30 teams, and only a handful have "national followings," so unless you want to advocate giving the Yankees a bye until the World Series, bemoaning the absence of one of those teams from the series is pointless. As I said, Fox and MLB need to do a better job marketing the series.
Its also interesting the NCAA Championship game in basketball is down from 30 million viewers in 1994 (Duke/Arkansas) to 15 million the last few championships. Is anyone writing articles about how the NCAA Championship is tough to sell?
Its also interesting the NCAA Championship game in basketball is down from 30 million viewers in 1994 (Duke/Arkansas) to 15 million the last few championships. Is anyone writing articles about how the NCAA Championship is tough to sell?
I think a ton of that has to do with office/bar pools/brackets. The NCAA has done a great job of marketing the first week with the "madness" of 32 games in 4 days.
But, as the tournament goes on, and most people are knocked out of their pools, interest definitely wanes. As the rating numbers show.
If the Orange Bowl ended its automatic tie-in with the ACC, it would probably boost interest.
Because baseball is run by bean counters rather than by baseball people, bean counters with the mentality of a Fortune 500 CEO whose sole concern is the bottom line.
And also because Fox tells them to; MLB has no say in the matter, not if it wants to keep its contract.
True, but isn't that exactly the point I was making about bean counters making baseball's key decisions? As long as baseball's bottom line is nothing but The Bottom Line, these aesthetic atrocities that we're forever complaining about are only going to get worse and worse.
I think the great hope for baseball on TV is the MLB network.
If it gets broad enough coverage, MLB may take back most/all of the postseason and game of the week and televise it themselves.
That might encourage longer term thinking.
"MNF" didn't return to the Top Ten until 1989, with an 18.1 rating. In 1992, its 16.7 rating lifted it into 7th place. In 1997, it had a 15.0 rating but was up to 4th. The following season, it fell to 13.9 but was still 4th. In 2000, the rating was 12.6, good for 6th.
ABC dropped the show following the 2005 season. The much-anticipated Colts-Patriots rematch was the highest-rated game of the show's last network season, getting an 8.8. One decade earlier, an average "MNF" rating was double that.
With a 6.2 rating, "Monday Night Football" finished its network run in 12th place.
Major League Baseball is a multibillion dollar industry that still has very high attendance and record or near record revenue coming in.
No, it isn't the consuming national obsession in America that the NFL is (and it hasn't been for years), but it's crazy to say that it has descended to the level of a "niche pleasure".
...local cable coverage is hugely profitable for teams and the cable companies...national game ratings may suck...but local baseball coverage is easily the biggest moneymaker for local media...
I would not be surprised to see MLB play hardball on the next national contract...and either lock in no internet blackouts on national games or just take the coverage in house except for the playoffs and have national games every day on MLB network and simultaneous on the interwebs for subscribers. The Postseason.tv mode is an interesting variation, providing the unedited camera feeds without blackouts...give me that year round and I'm more than happy.
10 years from now the internet is going to account for more than half the viewers of games...it is a natural fit.
Certainly there are other things going on, but it seems to me that this is one of the main factors.
Not that I care how much money FOX makes or doesn't make.
The Super Bowl regularly spews forth a vile excuse for a game, but that doesn't seem to stop people from watching it.
A car leaves a place at 2:00 AM at 60 MPH.
Another car leaves the same place at 7:00 AM going 75 MPH.
The second car is the NFL. The first car is MLB. Despite the fact that the 2nd car passes the first car, both are going very, very, far and very, very, fast. The same goes for your hypothetical NBA car, your NASCAR, your MMA car and your NCAA Football and Basketball cars. Even the NHL car, although the fact it's a Zamboni slows it down.
Super Bowl ceased to be about the game itself years ago.
The conclusion (college football is far more appealing now) doesn't necessarily follow the premise (the introduction of Saturday night football). I don't know the dynamics here, but I'd suspect that prime-time football a) is far cheaper to produce than original content, b) would do better than a second-run Saturday night movie of the week, and c) is an extension of the ESPN brand on network TV (notice how the current wave of Saturday night football coincided with the decision to brand the action as "ESPN on ABC," and, therefore, d) it makes sense.
So it makes sense to do, but that doesn't mean it makes any more sense to do now than a decade ago.
True, but that's a completely different animal. The NFL and TV have combined to make that a national holiday which is to their credit. Once you have committed to watching the game you're in it. Using me as an example, the Super Bowl is the only time all year I watch a football game in total. If I wasn't at my friend's house I probably wouldn't tune in at all but because I'm there I watch the game and in reality "watch" is being used pretty loosely here because I spend comparatively little of the game actually viewing the game. I talk to friends I don't see often, play with the kids, and if it's close in the 4th quarter I get comfortable and watch the last ten minutes.
That's part of what makes the March Madness so much fun. The first round match-ups involving colleges I haven't heard of are interesting because there is the outside chance that one of the #12 seeds will send home a #5 seed, and it will only take about 90 minutes to watch.
If the opening rounds of March Madness were 5-game series spread over 7 days, there is no way I'd watch all of it.
The same can be applied to the NFL playoffs (and Super Bowl).
Baseball has the "problem" of having long series AND long games, especially when you consider there is no "clock" to help end a game that is already out of hand.
Not if it's Cleveland with LeBron James ... which brings us full-circle that it's fairly inconceivable that the Indians will ever have an LBJ-equivalent (or George Brett 1980 equivalent).
IMHO, the only things we really know are:
1. The audience for network TV and TV generally has fragmented significantly in the last 30+ years.
2. The ratings for postseason MLB games involving markets like KC, as a proportion of those for markets like NYC/LA, were much higher 30 years ago than they are now (roughly double; KC/PHIL 1980 was higher than NYY/LAD 1978 while PHIL/TB and SF/TEX are roughly half NY/PHIL or even NY/BOS ALCS).
3. NBA ratings peaked when not only cable, but satellite, had made significant penetration.
4. NBA ratings were at their highest 4-5 years into the "I can see every game if I want to" era.
5. Michael Jordan had a helluva lot to do with when and why NBA ratings peaked.
Everything else seems up for grabs (well, everything other than FOX World Series productions stinking on toast).
I just don't understand why it's overtaken baseball. I mean there's, what, something like just 30 minutes of real action in every football game? That sort of voids the "baseball is boring" argument for me.
If it gets broad enough coverage, MLB may take back most/all of the postseason and game of the week and televise it themselves.
I'd love to see this, but you'd have to get the MLB network's saturation far beyond the point it's at now, since many cable networks only offer it as a premium channel. I know that this is the case for many Comcast regions, and I don't think that Dish offers it as part of a standard package. DirectTV and Fios do, but they don't account for the bulk of TV viewers.
--------------------
I'm no expert, but isn't FOX significantly to blame for the comparatively low ratings of this series? (Assuming the ratings are in fact low.) During the season FOX continually pimps matchups like Yankees-Mets and Yankees-Red Sox rather than showing more compelling games involving Texas or the Bondsless Giants or what have you
Funny, but right up through August I distinctly remember both the Yankees and the Red Sox being in a divisional race where there was a very good chance that one of them wouldn't make the playoffs, and by the end of July I also distinctly remember that the division "race" that Texas was in was already all but wrapped up by the Rangers. And I also recall noting that the Giants were scheduled in more than one or two ESPN doubleheader games as the NLW heated up.
About the Yankees-Mets, though, I will concede your point. But I think part of the problem is that the first half of the year is pre-scheduled in the offseason. Is this correct?
Violence and the fact that television shows replays of that violence during the voids between plays. Also, violence. And gambling.
I'm reasonably sure, BTW, that the NFL could survive a strike better than MLB and NHL, because the fact there would be College Football on TV would keep the sport going. During the MLB and NHL stoppages that wasn't the case. I mean, I'm sure the NFL wouldn't be in good shape after a extended work stoppage, but it would have a easier path to recovery.
You're right; the Yankees and Red Sox don't get shown enough by FOX.
(My point was a broader one, Andy, to argue that FOX tends to show Famous teams rather than compelling matchups; feel free to replace my Texas-Giants examples with whichever sub-teams you like.)
So what happens if the league acts to deal with all of the concussion hullabaloo and ends up neutering its violent appeal?
I just don't understand why it's overtaken baseball. I mean there's, what, something like just 30 minutes of real action in every football game? That sort of voids the "baseball is boring" argument for me.
I couldn't agree with you more, and I wish someone would count up the relative number of commercial breaks that occur during the average baseball game vs. the average NFL game. I can't ever seem to tune into any NFL game without first suffering through anywhere from one to about eight commercials. At least with baseball the commercial breaks are relatively predictable and seldom come out of nowhere.
But the problem is that most casual fans don't see it this way. All they notice is that 30 to 120 seconds between pitches, with visits to the mound, etc. You can fix part of that with a pitch clock, but you can't fix the essential rhythm of the game.
It's a bit like the problem that Hollywood faces when it tries to market a movie that actually features adult conversation and a coherent plot, as opposed to non-stop fantasy themes, flash frames, car chases and special effects. The audience for even half-serious movies has been so completely turned off by the current product that the zombie audience is about all Hollywood has left, while rest of us gravitate to the indie movie houses or TCM and just say the hell with it. And so it becomes a vicious circle. But the problem is that for baseball fans there's no comparable alternative during the postseason.
Funny, the Giants were NY royalty (**) when the Yankees were parvenus then nouveaux riches. Has anything changed?
Kidding aside, the story of this year's Giants is inherently compelling and should have been an easy market/sell for the reasons noted in 25 and elsewhere. No WS championships since the Move West is enough alone. It's beyond ridiculous that it wasn't.
(**) And still might be, if they hadn't been so shortsighted and actually stuck around.
Maybe I *do* understand: The major networks (FOX, in this case) fear controversy, fear the possibility of entering a recriminatory echo chamber induced by the weirdness of Brian Wilson, raunchiness of Aubrey Huff or vulgarity of Lincecum. They do not have the wherewithal to take a chance on potentially, you know, exciting players. That might get knot a collective media knicker and, my heavens, then what? The worst of all possible worlds is having all that interest and personality (there's a reason the Giants have energized northern California) translated through a catatonic Joe Buck and moronic Tim McCarver (who has been putting on an idiocy clinic for this series). It's like having your slightly demented grandmother try to explain to a stranger why the Larry Sanders Show was so brilliant despite her not knowing any of the characters or guests, not finding it very funny, and being incapable of following the plot.
So that's my first guess. But then, this is the same network that rolls out Family Guy and others during what amounts to the same time slot, and that junk regularly crosses boundaries that would give even Brian Wilson pause (in front of a camera, anyway).
I didn't say that, but when the Yankees and the Red Sox are in a tight race---which they almost always are---I don't see what the big objection is, other than a general distaste for one or both of those teams.
(My point was a broader one, Andy, to argue that FOX tends to show Famous teams rather than compelling matchups; feel free to replace my Texas-Giants examples with whichever sub-teams you like.)
I don't disagree with this broader point, but for those of you without the ExtraInnings package, the solution will probably lie with an expanded MLB network schedule, along the lines of what snapper suggested in #70. I don't really think that Fox or ESPN is likely to be changing its spots anytime soon.
Of course for 60 cents a ####### day, anyone not trapped in a location with no Fios or DTV access can already watch any game he wants. IOW just give up one can of rotgut beer a day and you'll have no cause for complaint. And does it really matter all that much how many others are watching any particular game, as long as you're able to yourself?
But you can see FOX's dilemma: What with the charisma of Andy Pettitte and the intangible grace of Derek Jeter, there simply isn't enough room for the Brian Wilsons and Tim Lincecums of the world.
I'm a pretty diehard baseball fan and I had no idea what Brian Wilson or Freddy Sanchez even looked like before a few weeks ago. I had actually forgotten that Sanchez was even on the Giants.
Uh...FOX? The same network that puts on shows like "Pleasure Island"?
They don't seem to have much of an issue marketing guys like Chad Ochocinco.
That's not the point, though, for committed fans like most of us on the board.
The point is that when your (in my case, 1A) favorite team, replete with compelling stories and compelling personalities, makes it to the World Series, it would be nice if the baseball media world did something besides piss and moan about the Yankees not being there.
I'm a Red Sox fan, so "a general distaste for one or both of those teams" doesn't apply.
This utterly misses the point. I'm not discussing whether I have access to the games I want. I'm discussing why the WS ratings are low. My theory is that the WS ratings are low in no small part due to FOX's preference for showing famous teams during the season. I'm open to hearing arguments why my theory is wrong (it may well be), but the issue of whether I can afford the MLB Extra Innings package is irrelevant to that. My theory is that the teams shown nationally by FOX on Saturdays during the season has an impact on the WS ratings.
Maybe the best guess is that they make money currently and don't really care about improving things. And I did mention the incongruity at the end of my post.... Grabbing at straws, I guess.
I'm shocked, *shocked*.
The Red Sox weren't really that close this year.
And on the last Saturday of the season, FOX 5 in NYC showed a completely meaningless Yankee/Red Sox game instead of the Giants/Padres game with the NL West still very much up for grabs.(**) Giants/Padres wasn't available even to EI subscribers in NYC.
Enough said.
(**) Anyone got the map of what games were shown where that Saturday? That'd be a nice test case.
The NFL could also better weather a strike because they learned in 1987 that they can suit up any anonymous 300 lb jabronies in the home team's colors and enough people will buy tickets and tune their TV to this version of "NFL" football.
They'd have a tougher road coming back from a owners' lockout, but I guess they'd be fine once the concussions and point spreads started rolling again.
No, but I bet it would take losing more than one season to any real harm to the NFL. Six weeks into the strike/lockout (whatever) the networks would start raiding the NFL Films vaults and begin showing "Great Games of the Past". Hell, I don't even watch the friggin' NFL and I would probably tune in to see some Jim Brown-era Browns or Dick Butkus-era Bears games.
I can actually compare the system then and now. I am currently a chosen one for the ratings, although it's Arbitron and not Nielsen. And I have been part of a Nielsen family in both the 1980s and 1990s.
In the 1980s I had to fill in a diary, writing down the name of the station and television show in the diary's slot for that time period. It was a process prone to non-response and to tester fatigue, which is making me wonder how 24.3% of the respondents even filled out the damn thing, let alone told the world they were watching Love Boat. They also wanted us to write down which cable channels we were receiving, which was a lot harder to determine in 1981 than it is today.
In 1998 I did it again while living alone and the process seemed improved although still fairly sloppy.
But today, granting that it's Arbitron and not Neilsen, it's much better. We (my wife and I) are required to wear a beeper like device during waking hours but that's it--the device is supposed to do the work for us by receiving the gamma waves or whatever from the television. The biggest hassle, if you can call it that, is remembering to charge the device at night and remembering to wear it again during the day. And we get plenty of e-mails or phone calls from Arbitron if we lapse in our effort.
You must be Registered and Logged In to post comments.
<< Back to main