Once you've seen one 4-1/2 hour Yankees/Red Sox game ....

In addition, ratings for baseball on FOX have either declined or remained flat in ten consecutive seasons.

Well, you can be sure that will be reflected in their next contract offer.

The 1.7 rating is the lowest ever for the Major League Baseball “Game of the Week” on broadcast television

But isn't that sort of like saying that the five letters delivered last year by horse-drawn carriage were the lowest ever? Obviously most people who get "broadcast" get it over cable or satellite, actually. But you're comparing channels that are now just another cable channel (and cable now just another entertainment option) to channels of the past that were, the farther back you go, more and more literally the only game in town.

Somebody posts this in every such thread, I know. It's just that MLB is swimming in money and publicity, and worrying about how many people are watching big manual scoreboards fed by telegraph in Herald Square is not really relevant.

(Edited out original post after realizing I'd misread Bob Dernier's.)

Somebody posts this in every such thread, I know. It's just that MLB is swimming in money and publicity, and worrying about how many people are watching big manual scoreboards fed by telegraph in Herald Square is not really relevant.

The argument is that the NFL averages much better per broadcast, why can't baseball? Mind you, it's a stupid argument for the most part, but has some merits.

Fox does so many things counter to good sports tv with their baseball broadcasts that it should be no surprise that it's stagnant nationally.

I doubt there is much that could be done to get their ratings back, but some things such as more variety would be a start,(With interleague all year long next year, we'll see if they take advantage of the interesting matchups that will produce during the season, of course if they go with a Mets/Yankee broadcast, you know they haven't figured it out yet) Another way to take advantage of their broadcast rights, would be to negotiate for online simultaneous broadcast/camera angles from their own website.

I still kvetch over postseason ratings but regular season ratings really don't matter a damn. Most people follow their own team, and that's who they watch. Nobody else. The postseason is when people should start caring about teams other than their own.

I wonder what baseball's rating looks like if you add up all the local telecasts on Saturday with the game of the week. Then compare those to how the NFL local telecasts do.

I wonder how the NFL non-local games do relative to the MLB GotW.

Let's at least have apples to apples comparisons. I'm sure baseball still wouldn't look great in these comparisons but let's make them similar at least.

In the end, to paraphrase Tip O'Neill, all baseball is local.

Now why Fox et al are paying ginormous amounts of money to broadcast the playoffs? I assume they have their reasons since they keep lining up to do it.

I wonder how the NFL non-local games do relative to the MLB GotW.

From memory baseball in baseball crazy towns(Boston/St Louis) get about 9.0 rating for a local broadcast(doing a quick google, Cincy and Detroit led MLB at the all star break with around 8.6) I'm fairly certain that local football does a better job(thought it was around 12-15 or so)

Assuming my memory is accurate(quick google searches show that's about right) I would love to see a detailed ratings that is verifiable, for local broadcasts.

I would love to see a list of the "30" baseball markets and their ratings for the home team, and then the NFL "32" markets and both their local teams ratings, and the ratings for other games.

I was in the Luxor sports book Sunday night. They did not even have the Yanks-Orioles game on anywhere in the book (or casino) until midway through. Playoff baseball, not showing in the sports book.

I was in the Luxor sports book Sunday night. They did not even have the Yanks-Orioles game on anywhere in the book (or casino) until midway through. Playoff baseball, not showing in the sports book.

Here's the baseball wasteland I live in. Every Sunday, we go to a sports bar on the beach. It's where everyone goes to watch football on Sundays. I'm not a huge football fan, and neither is my wife, but we have a great time. It's on the beach, they have a pool, sometimes we go by boat, we see and hang with friends drink beer, eat wings...It's a great time. Anyhoo, they have 9 TV's. Last Sunday there were only six 1:00 games. TV #7 had a repeat of the Steelers-Eagles game. TV#8 had NASCAR. TV#9 had an infomercial. Last year during the playoffs, when I asked the manager if he could shift from NASCAR to the ALCS, he scoffed at me. On Sunday, I asked him if he could put the baseball game on instead of the infomercial. He sighed and said "I'll see what I can do." The channel was never changed.

10 - I've had similar experiences, but feel it has more to do with the bartender being too lazy to want to go find a remote and then find the channel. It got to the point where I was enough of a repeat customer that I was entrusted the remote to find whatever I wanted. I've also noticed that gender has been a factor in whether a game is on. The vast majority of college-age girls who get employed by bars do not know when and what channel the games are on, and thus just leave it at ESPN.

Here's the baseball wasteland I live in. Every Sunday, we go to a sports bar on the beach. It's where everyone goes to watch football on Sundays. I'm not a huge football fan, and neither is my wife, but we have a great time. It's on the beach, they have a pool, sometimes we go by boat, we see and hang with friends drink beer, eat wings...It's a great time. Anyhoo, they have 9 TV's. Last Sunday there were only six 1:00 games. TV #7 had a repeat of the Steelers-Eagles game. TV#8 had NASCAR. TV#9 had an infomercial. Last year during the playoffs, when I asked the manager if he could shift from NASCAR to the ALCS, he scoffed at me. On Sunday, I asked him if he could put the baseball game on instead of the infomercial. He sighed and said "I'll see what I can do." The channel was never changed.

I've never been to a sports bar, but if that's typical, it's terrible.

10 - I've had similar experiences, but feel it has more to do with the bartender being too lazy to want to go find a remote and then find the channel. It got to the point where I was enough of a repeat customer that I was entrusted the remote to find whatever I wanted. I've also noticed that gender has been a factor in whether a game is on. The vast majority of college-age girls who get employed by bars do not know when and what channel the games are on, and thus just leave it at ESPN.

This was the manager, who prints up a guide of which games are on which TV and posted all around the place. He clearly doesn't want his place and his customers contaminated by baseball. Mind you, I let it go. I go to this place knowing this full well in advance. I understand his clientele would rather watch NASCAR than baseball. I didn't know they would rather have a soundless infomercial on instead.

Where is this god forsaken land?

Where is this god forsaken land?

Florida Keys. One has to take the good with the bad.

What sport is there to watch in the summer besides baseball? Surely Floridians of the sports bar type don't like soccer.

13 - That still sounds like laziness. There almost certainly was a game on after the infomercial (even if it's like 3 hours later). The manager put the channel on, and didn't want to be bothered any more than that.

Last year during the playoffs, when I asked the manager if he could shift from NASCAR to the ALCS, he scoffed at me. On Sunday, I asked him if he could put the baseball game on instead of the infomercial. He sighed and said "I'll see what I can do." The channel was never changed.

I would have ####### talked to the owner at that point, and even if it did no good, tell him I would be pointing out the shittiness of his staff wherever I could online. Yes, I can be petty.

I mean, this is only my experience, but I certainly watched less FOX baseball this year because they pushed everything back to 4 or 7. I am hardly ever going to watch a regular season 7 pm game on a saturday, I got a wife who has #### she wants me to do. I will watch about half the 4 pm games, depending. The 1 pm, I'll watch the whole thing.

This is probably a get off my lawn complaint since I am sure they ahve folks who look at the ratings second bys econd but that is my experience for sure.

Well, I can't imagine why someone wouldn't want to watch the head of the pitcher 500 times, cut in with 500 shots of the manager. And the head of a runner leading off the, well, there is a base in there somewhere. And the ball rolling all by itself in the outfield, while everyone gets to guess what might be happening to the other 15 people on the field. So thrilling!!!! And the pickup of the bullpen phone in the dugout is MUST SEE TV. I mean, my heart races whenever I see it. And I long to be the cameraperson who would be ready to bring that action shot to millions of TV's in sports bars everywhere. And praying hands, over and over and over. Must tune in for the praying hands!!!!! And dugout reaction shots. GIVE ME MORE AND MORE AND MORE OF THE SAME THING. MORE!!!!

Baseball is one long continuous cliche on TV....done the same way night after night after night until it might as well be black and white wallpaper. Until someone comes in and fires every director and producer and camera jockey, blows every one of these stupid visual cliches out of the broadcast and decides that "its the pictures, stupid", baseball will continue to get ratings that equal...well, wallpaper.

FOX had its GotW contract rigged so that no other MLB games would be going on at the time of the GotW. So if they were showing the GotW at 1:00, the other games weren't starting until 4, or 5, or 7. I don't know about the rest of you, but if my favorite team's game isn't starting until 5:00 I'm not seeking out the TV for baseball at 1:00. But if I'm watching the game at 5:00 and there's a pitching change or a mid-inning break, I'm flipping to other channels to see what's going on with other games; and if I find something compelling - no-hitter in progress, or late and close - I leave it there.

IOW, if FOX isn't broadcasting my team's game, FOX has rigged it so they won't have any chance of getting me to tune in at all.

I would have ####### talked to the owner at that point, and even if it did no good, tell him I would be pointing out the shittiness of his staff wherever I could online. Yes, I can be petty.

The owner is former Pittsburgh Steeler Gary Dunn. It would have done no good. It's a football bar first, second, and last.

It must have other attributes, Duck. I wouldn't go back. Too many other fine things to do where you live and I mix a decent enough drink on my own.

It must have other attributes, Duck. I wouldn't go back. Too many other fine things to do where you live and I mix a decent enough drink on my own.

Well, as I explained, it's mostly a social event. There's a pool, playground, beach...The point of my bringing it up is to illustrate that some places in this country couldn't give a fig about baseball. Even though it is a football bar, nobody seems to care that an infomercial is being shown on the spare telly instead of a playoff baseball game.