Baseball TV ratings down

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Posted By: Bobby

On the radio this morning they were talking how FOX and ESPN are going to cut down on the amount of Baseball games shown on TV next year because the ratings are horrible. In the meantime Pro & Collecge football as well as NASCAR rating are soaring...

I think the main reason why baseball is declining is because of the lack of American Born players...Americans want to watch sports where there are Americans playing and dominating the sport. That is why Soccor has never caought on here because we where never any good at it.

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Posted By: DJ

Both sports are very slow on TV and I think this country has a facination for speed and want violence right now and right away! It doesn't help that Football is more interactive with gamblings, challenges and plays better for a bar outing. Also, it's a great three days release after working five days straight.

I absolutely hate soccer and I don't think the US has embraced it because of US born players, we have a team of US players but because it's a patient sport for an impatient generation/society. We also don't like little men running around in a circle, passing the ball to one another until one goes down with a fake injury, pretends he's in pain, goes on the stretcher (will he live?) and then jumps off the stretcher and goes back into the game like nothing happened. Plus we like using our hands and what's the deal with yellow and red cards? Blah!

People watch Nascar because...I don't know (not my thing)...crashes?

Part of the problem with baseball is that it's everywhere. Fox and ESPN have select games but on any good night, I have the options of watching the Mets, Yankees, Braves, Cubs/White Sox and the ESPN and/or ESPN2 game and I only have two eye balls and I can't watch it all, as much as I love baseball. I'm not going to watch the Indians/Rangers if I can watch the Yankees/Orioles but if the Indians/Rangers was the only option, I would watch that game.

Ratings would be higher if their weren't that many options. I remember growing up and on the TV, there would maybe one game every three nights. Now, it's so spread out.

DJ

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Posted By: Cobby33

Maybe now that Lyons is out, ratings will go up.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Even my wife (who would be termed a casual fan at best) remarked on how rotten Fox especially was in covering the game. Fox follows the same pattern every time: closeup on the batter, close up on the pitcher, close up on someone in the dugout, closeup on a fan, action. I can't take more than a few moments of it. 75% of their coverage asks the viewer to watch people watching baseball...it sucks. Show the ****ing game!

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Posted By: David Smith

The problem, as I see it, is that ESPN shows only two teams-the Yankees and the Red Sox!! Because of this, most of the rest of the country has no clue WHO plays for the other teams. Therfor, when it comes time to vote for the All-Star team, the Yankees and Red Sox get voted on and the rest, especially National League players, are unknown and it is a crapshoot.

ESPN, based in Bristol, Connecticut, needs to get their collective heads out of their Northeastern a**es and show other teams. After this years World Series, there is going to be seven different winners over the last seven years but I guarantee you if you go back over each season, most of those winners will hardly ever have been shown on ESPN unless, of course, they played against the Yankees or the Red Sox.

The best thing that ESPN could do is NEVER show a Yankees or Red Sox game before the All Star break. You know both teams, because of their HUGE payrolls, are probably going to be in contention for the Post Season so, instead of broadcasting their games two and three times a week, show the other teams. That way, in case a team like the Marlins, Diamondbacks or Angels make it to the Post Season, a lot more people will have heard of them and their players.

David

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Posted By: Ted Zanidakis

Adults, who are long-time BB fans, for the most part still watch a lot of BB on TV. Let's
face it, there is not much else on TV that is worth watching.....unless the "24" series
(with Kiefer Sutherland) is on. It's the younger set that don't watch BB anymore. When
I was a kid....and TV was just invented....HA !....my parents needed a crowbar to pull me
away from the TV when the Yankees, Dodgers, or Giants were playing. Baseball, in many
public schools around the country, is being replaced by that dumb foreign game....soccer.

Besides NASCAR....Golf and Tennis are enjoying a growing viewership. And, just like a w/e
NASCAR event, these two sports are also more or less "short-shot" events. The outcome
is determined in a day or so. And, that is what this present-day, impatient generation is
tuned to.

Major Tennis events....US OPEN and Wimbledon....are gaining huge viewership each year.
I play a lot of Tennis, usually 2-hrs. of Singles. Next to BaseBall, I really enjoy this sport.

T-Rex TED

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Posted By: Chad

I doubt any NFL team or any NASCAR venue would draw 40,000 a game if they had 81 home dates a year. Baseball is fine. FOX just doesn't know what to do with baseball and they never have. I don't think Americans give one fart if there are too many foreign players or not. We want to see the best and we're paying to see the best in record numbers. This idea of too many foreign players comes up on this board every once in a while and it baffles me. I can't wait for the Dutch and the Australians and the South Africans and China to start pumping out players. The more the merrier.

--Chad

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Posted By: Erick Lewin

I think there's been a lack of juice (no pun intended) in the games. The Yanks didn't get anywhere, the Red and White Sox didn't make it. Detoroit is filled with a lot of guys the casual fan isn't familiar with. Fox has been bad in it's coverage. There was also the most recent steroid scandal allegations that broke right before the playoffs.

But back to the original point there hasn't really been much drama in any of the games or series. It's been a little boring. There's yet to be a bigtime walkoff homer or tremendous defensive play at a crucial part of a game.

Hopefully the series will deliver! Even though my teams out (yanks).

P.S. The all-star game should not decide homefield advantage...stupid

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Posted By: S Gross

.... what Chad said .... Baseball is fine .....

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

I will continue to maintain my belief that baseball is the most popular non-motor sport in this country.

Sure, suveys will tell you that football is their favorite sport. I think there are a couple of reasons for this:

1. Football happens during a time of year when there's fewer other activities for spectators to do outside. How many people would stay holed up inside and watch baseball if it were 8 degrees outside?
2. Football teams play once a week, on a day most everyone is home, during the day. If baseball games were ONLY on Sundays, how many people would become week-to-week fanatics? Instead, with baseball, the games are on every day, usually at night.
3. The football season is 16 games long. Every game is critical - already there are teams that have no shot at the postseason. With a 162 game schedule, a fan could miss two weeks of games and really not have those games be meaningful in the scope of an entire season.
4. Baseball games are on TV mostly during prime time, when there's lots of other competition for TV viewership. Football games are on TV on Sunday afternoons, when there's nothing else on.

I agree with those that say football appears to be a faster-moving game (although in reality, it is not). I also agree with those that say that TV coverage of baseball is dismal.

Football and basketball also do a much better job marketing their players. Why? In baseball, they have arbitration. You can't have the Cardinals marketing the hell out of Albert Pujols, because eventually they'll have to go to an arbitration hearing where they have to prove that he's not worth what he's asking for. So teams don't market their individual players very much. As such, teams lose some of their personality.

The reality is that paid attendance at major league baseball games was at an all-time high this year. Something like 76 million. I also heard that paid attendance at pro ballgames in general - including minor leagues - was also at an all-time high.

I think Fox and ESPN need to fix their broadcasts, not reduce their number. Get some exciting camera shots, try and illustrate the intensity of the game. I think baseball in general needs to back off on the ridiculous suspensions for fighting and purpose pitches and such. If the game could get back to the hard-nosed, semi contact sport that it once was, and the networks could make an effort to reduce the lengthy camera shots on one player, and maybe hire some broadcasters who could educate the viewers on the strategy and history of the game, more people might watch.

-Al

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Posted By: Chris Bland

It would help if ESPN would act like there is interesting baseball outside of the Yankees-Red Sox games. Watch "Baseball Tonight" sometime when those two teams are playing each other - you would think MLB was a two team league based on the coverage...

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Posted By: barrysloate

Playoff games on the east coast typically end around midnight, with an 11:30 ending considered early and a few marathon contests pushing 1:00 AM. Frankly, I can't stay up that late and many others can't either. And we are not talking about just once but nearly every night of the week. Certainly a kid in the sixth grade is not getting permission to watch TV until midnight on a school night. And let's keep in mind that most of a baseball game is not edge of your seat thrilling. Put all this together and I think baseball is shooting itself in the foot. I typically watch until the fifth or sixth inning and then go to sleep. If baseball doesn't care about me, then I don't care about it.

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Posted By: JimB

Who really cared anymore after the Dodgers were knocked out?
JimB

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Posted By: rp60

The games end too late on the east coast regardless of the money of new york and boston..The game is too slow for many as well. I dont think the explosion of hispanic players is a major factor..The gate for baseball has been good..

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Posted By: Mike

You mean Eastpn? Also, what happened to the Saturday game of the week, like 15-20 years ago? Now on Saturdays, Fox shows local games 90% of the season. As if I don't get enough of the Cubs, now if I want to watch a game Sat. afternoon, it's Cubs or Sox.

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Posted By: dstudeba

Barry summed up what my feelings on baseball have become over the years.

"If baseball doesn't care about me, I don't care about it"

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Posted By: Rich W.

I don't think the birthplace or the accent of any player in any sport deters Americans from watching baseball. The popularity of David Ortiz is being compared to the almighty Larry Bird and Bobby Orr here in New England. Sammy Sosa (pre-steroids) was one of the most beloved players in all of sports. Pujols is revered by all true baseball fans. And I've never heard a bad thing about Ichiro playing in America. I agree that the games are too long, and there are too many options on any night of the week. Having watched hundreds of games this year, I found it difficult to watch my Red Sox when they were out of the playoff hunt. I am trying to latch onto the remaining teams in order to enjoy the games (I hate the Mets and I love Jim Leyland, so my choices are obvious). When I was a kid, I had Saturday afternoon baseball with Joe Garigiola and Tony Kubek. That was it outside the Red Sox. Simple supply and demand.

Rich W.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

I agree that the international nature of baseball is one of the things that works in its favor. More international players actually draw in more fans, I think, and not vice-versa. One need only look at the impact of players like Ichiro and Hideki Matsui to see that.

-Al

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Posted By: Dylan

Well ill tell you what here in Seattle if the mariners are winning they are the darlings and talk of the town, but since the Hawks have finally got a winning team on the field peoples talk of sports has changed. Locally, are baseball team misses the big name draws we had in the 90's. Our baseball team doesnt have the personality are old teams had, and even if they are winning arent nearly as fun as our teams in the 90's. Baseball is what it is, not the greatest game to watch on the box at home, but an awesome in the park experience.

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Posted By: jay behrens

I remember about 15 or 20 years ago, Scientific America had anrticle about the amount of action in each sport. Football had the least amount of action with the average game having fewer than 12 minutes of action during the entire game. This was measured from the snap of the ball until it was blown dead.

Baseball is fine, as was pointed out, it's just that people that are airing the games need to pull thier heads out of their collective asses and give us better coverage AND cover someone other than the Yankees or Red Sox.

Jay

I love pinatas. You get to beat the crap of something and get rewarded with candy.

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Posted By: Dave Williams

As was pointed out several times, Yankees/Red Sox were on about every time they played, and the Yankees were on when they played anyone else.

Also, here in Northern Indiana anytime a Chicago team or the Tigers were on ESPN the game was blacked out. What's with that? You want people to watch the game, and then it gets blacked out. Ridiculous.

Baseball is just not a real good TV game anyway, it's a game people watch in person. And TV has a tough time with it, because it may last 2 hours, or 3 hours, or 4 hours, it's tough to schedule, unlike football or basketball.