According to a report in the Washington Times:
The four games [of the NLCS] on TBS drew an average rating of about 3.0, including a new record-low of 2.2 for Friday night's Game 2, according to Nielsen Media Research. The previous record-low for an LCS game was 4.9. Each ratings point equals about 1.1 million households.
Ordinarily, I could care less about the ratings for a playoff series. However, these ratings mean a great deal to any fan of a team not in New York or Boston. These ratings tell the networks, ESPN, and all other sports media outlets that the only way to attract readers and viewers is to focus even more on the Yankees and the Red Sox, which is why we are currently inundated with stories like: will A-Rod opt out? Is Dice-K a bust? Will the Steinbrenner boys fire Torre? What is Manny smoking? And so on. Unfortunately for those of us more concerned about other teams, these ratings are going to give us even more of these stories over the course of the Series and through the offseason, while the rest of the league is pushed to the back pages. These ratings signal to the shortsighted fools running the networks and Baseball that the only thing the viewing public cares about is a series involving the Yankees and the Red Sox.
However, the problem is not that two teams from secondary media markets were playing in the NLCS; rather the problem is that baseball chooses to only market the marquee franchises in New York and Boston, thereby limiting the public’s knowledge of other intriguing teams. Now baseball sits on the precipice of a World Series featuring the Indians versus the Rockies, which no doubt will be a ratings disaster for Fox. Yet, it shouldn’t be a ratings disaster, as there are a myriad of intriguing storylines from such a series: the first World Series for the Rox, Cleveland hasn’t won a pennant since 1948, Todd Helton’s first trip to the World Series, the Rockies and their amazing streak of winning 21 out of 22 games to get to the Series, World Series games in the snow, World Series Games played in the thin air of Denver, Chief Wahoo, Rick Vaughan and Pedro Cerrano. The Wild Thing in Colorado, next on Fox.
An example of what Baseball should be doing can be gleaned from the NBA. The genius of David Stern and the NBA was their use of the stars in the game to generate fan followings and interest in the various playoff series’. Stern found a way to focus on players from nearly every team and especially the perennial championship contenders to ensure that each series was followed by fans all over the country (i.e. in the 90’s with MJ, Pippen, Stockton, Malone, Robinson, Kemp, Payton, Hakeem, Miller, Shaq, Penny). It should be noted that the players on this list all played for mid-market teams. Admittedly, this contributed to the one-on-one nature of the professional game today, but at the time it raised the public profile of the league to incredible heights. Baseball has attempted a similar push, but has focused solely on Jeter, A-Rod, Manny, Big Papi, and to a lesser extent Pujols and Vlad. What about Matt Holliday, a near-Triple Crown winner this year (he led the National League in RBIs and Batting Average and was in the top five for home runs with 36)? What about Troy Tulowitzki, the rangy shortstop who should win the NL Rookie of the Year award? C.C. Sabathia? Pronk? The list could go on, but you would not know it if you merely followed the MLB commercials or ESPN highlights over the course of the season. Baseball’s exclusion of stars from mid-market teams puts it at a severe disadvantage in terms of generating fan interest for this upcoming World Series.
By ignoring the rest of its teams, by focusing on these two admittedly legendary franchises, Baseball has guaranteed that any series involving other teams will turn off casual fans. Good, interesting baseball will be played in a series involving these two teams. Newsworthy sports stories will come out of this series. Moreover, a number of talented, exciting players will be making their World Series debuts. And all of it will be missed, because the general public has been conditioned by Baseball, ESPN, and Fox to only care about the Yankees and Red Sox.
4 comments:
BREAKING NEWS: Joe Torre is out in NY. Will the players stay? How will this affect the Sox rivalry? Let's discuss. JK.
I totally agree Bobbo, the rivalry has been blown out of proportion and the story of the year for baseball has to be the run of the rockies from september into the postseason. If they can't sell that story then they need to get another day job.
Thank you BJ for agreeing with me. It is great that we can have these chats. I miss you. I miss your musk.
i'd be more interested in watching rockies-indians than having either the sox or yankees in the world series. the problem with baseball is the lack of competitive balance; most people stopped following baseball months ago. give me a salary cap
Interesting business perspective BD, I like it. My complaint has to do with the marketing job of MLB for this postseason. They chose to throw Dane Cook (most over-rated person in the world) on the screen and have him say OCTOBER a bunch of times. Now if that doesn't get you fired up, what will! I almost feel a need to skip the games just in protest. So well done MLB. Kudos.
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