Baseball LCS ratings down! The world is coming to an end!

World Series of Poker?

 

They overexposed it as an overreaction to its surge in popularity in the mid-2000s, right? ESPN always showed WSOP, or did for a while before the poker boom happened. I don't think that was a case of trying to make poker a big deal by promoting the hell out of it.

They tried with Arena Football and we see where that went. You could make the case that they did it with the X Games, but that's an ESPN event, so it'd be more akin to promoting SportsCenter or The Junction Boys.

 

No, that isn't my argument. Or at least not all of it.

My argument is that you have to give the fans of every franchise reason to believe their team has the same opportunity to win as every other team AND provide more of a balance in what games you show nationally. It is a combination of the two.

And it would be MUCH easier for baseball to provide more balanced coverage simply because there are more games and more opportunities to highlight every team. They just choose not to.

 

Then I'd say you're half wrong, at least. The on-field equity issue has different solutions for different sports. What works in a 16-game NFL isn't necessarily going to work for a 162-game MLB. I don't know that baseball has every had what you would call parity since the expansion era. Not sure exactly what the answer is, but getting hot in the NFL makes a big difference in your fortunes, whereas getting hot in baseball might shave a few games off a division lead before another cold snap brings you back to earth. At one point, the Indians were the hot shit team in baseball, but that didn't last.

ESPN is in the business of earning ratings. They're not going to pass up games involving two ratings winners to broadcast two lesser-known teams, either for the shaky theory that it'll result in spreading the wealth, or some hoary sense of fairness. Win a bunch of games, then they'll HAVE to show your games, even if you're in Enid, Okla. or Hilo, Hawaii.

 

But you could look at Justin Verlander or Josh Hamilton or, 10 years ago, Vlad Guerrero as something like Peyton Manning in terms of being the best player in the league and from a small market. So throw the Tiger or Rangers or, 10 years ago, Expos on the national Fox telecast Saturday or the ESPN Sunday game. What does it accomplish? Not very much, because people just don't feel the need to monitor regular-season baseball the same way. Hell, you can't even be sure any of those guys are going to play, if it's the last game of a 10-day trip or if a rainout changed up the rotation.

 

I was looking at ESPN's Monday Night Football, and the Sunday Night Baseball (through the end of Aug.) for this year. One thing that struck me was the parity of the schedule for the NFL teams:

For MNF, I counted 26 teams taking up 34 slots. But for SNB, there were only 15 teams taking up 28 slots.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/39396/monday-night-football-schedule-2011

No NFL team appears on MNF more than twice, while for SNB, the Red Sox and Yankees appear five times each. That's two teams taking up over 1/3 of the available slots.

I know it's tough to compare the two, and ESPN is all about its ratings, but considering how better it would be for the long-term growth, maybe baseball shouldn't be so surprised that interest slides when either the Red Sox or Yankees aren't going deep in the playoffs.
http://www.channelguidemagblog.com/index.php/2011/01/12/2011-espn-sunday-night-baseball-schedule/

 

And in your mind what has been the problem with baseball's long-term growth? These owners are making more money than they ever dreamed of making. Every team is profitable. Franchise values continue to soar. The dollars being thrown around for cable TV deals are mind-boggling. There isn't a cloud on the horizon.

So, ratings slide for two weeks this year. Who cares? How does this affect the business in any way?

 

Now I know how the soccer fans feel. I don't give a wet bloody shit if people watch or not.

 

It's so people have something to write about. I just went back and looked at past TV ratings. Granted, this was in the era of the Big Three when there wasn't much else on, but I think this illustrates the point a bit.

1978 World Series (LAD vs NYY) -- 44.28 million viewers average
1983 World Series (PHI vs BAL) -- 29.54 million
1984 World Series (DET vs SD) -- 28 million
1986 World Series (BOS vs NYM) -- 36.37 million

What does this illustrate, besides the World Series getting more viewers in the older days? It just tells me that viewership fluctuated even back then based on the matchup.

 

Good research, Steveu. Point well taken.

 

Sorry, but you're the one who is off. The more you level the playing field, the more success smaller markets will have. They still may falter, but they will do so on merit and the fans will realize that at least their team has a fair shot.

A salary floor would help. It doesn't guarantee success, but over the long haul, it would help to even things out. It would also keep cheap organizations such as the Pittsburgh Pirates from puutting profit before success. A salary cap would help, too, but I put a floor first because it is more important.

Take away the salary floor and the Bengals would be the NFL's version of the Pirates. They would suck every single year.

More significant revenue sharing would help, too. Can MLB do exactly what the NFL does? No. But it can take certain things that will work in any system. The owners and players simply refuse to make that happen.

 

That should end all future discussion on this topic. It won't, but it should. Good pull.