I read a newspaper article today that expressed my thoughts about the World Series.
- It slammed Selig for starting these World Series games so late. Viewers on the East coast have to stay up until 1:00 - 1:30 to watch an entire game. Kids don't get to see the Series at all.
- It slammed the TV media for requiring managers to do "in game" interviews. These interviews are a waste of time. No manager or pitching coach ever comes on & says their team is doing poorly or is going to lose. Let the coaches coach during a game.
- Finally, it slammed Selig for even starting Game 5 under the poor weather conditions in Philly. I guess Selig had to appease FOX so that their ratings wouldn't suffer.
The point of the article is that the fan always pays. It's commercial after commercial in-between innings, so much so that you miss the 1st pitch sometimes. It's late nights. It's higher ticket prices.
Baseball needs to do something for their fans soon, or risk seeing stadiums with more vacant seats. This sport is not immune from the economic slowdown.
1 comment:
THE WORLD SERIES ON CABLE!!!
That is the road MLB is headed towards. MLB just like the country's economic crisis is the result of short sighted thinking. Younger viewers just aren't watching the games and that is a long term problem.
Being a realist I fully understand that television writes the biggest check for all major US sports and therefore gets what it wants. However, look at hockey, in order to get the biggest tv deal the NHL signed with an obscure network VS. By taking less money now, you insure long term growth as opposed to simply looking at balance sheets from one year to the next. I hate to say it but America's past time is in the past. Baseball is a great sport but I think that it has already slipped to 4th in America behind the NFL, college football and dare I say NASCAR.
America's best athletes don't grow up playing baseball anymore. They play football or basketball, and why, because these kids watch these games during the day not at midnight on a school night.
Mr. Selig, aka Uncle Bud, here are my long term solutions:
1) we need to shorten the season. I realize that due to revenue 162 games will not come down but by scheduling every team 1 double header every 4 weeks we could take 7 days off the schedule.
2) By limiting the playoffs to 1 travel day instead of 2 or more would further shorten the playoffs by at least 3 days. There fore for the 2008 season the playoffs would have started on September 24th and finished at the latest October 19th. I believe by doing this you put yourself in a better viewership postition because your fighting with early season NFL and NCAA-CF seasons.
3) Fox, TBS and other broadcasters won't budge on 8:37 first pitches on weekdays because of the west coast markets but Saturday games should start no later than 3pm EST. Usually the best CF games are on ABC and ESPN at 8pm, therefore this would put you head to head against local matchups nationwide with less viewership. The only ratings saver this year was an extremely nice gesture by the NFL not to play the NYG - Steelers game at 8:30 which would have cut severly into the 10 rating that game 4 got.
4) Finally a television contract that may be worth less money in the short term by keeping your games on the major networks will payoff in the long run by giving your premier games more exposure. Thank goodness ESPN is based between Boston and New York because without their season long coverage of baseball on Sportscenter and Baseball Tonight, MLB may already be hockey.
In concusion, this is just one die-hard baseball fan spending other's money but I do think this formula would be great for the long term sustainability of the game I love.
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