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World Series TV Ratings Average Drops 32% Below Previous Low

Y2kTheNewOldies

Y2kTheNewOldies

https://tvnewscheck.com/article/top...-ratings-average-drops-32-below-previous-low/

Not really shocking given the situation.

ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — The Los Angeles Dodgers’ six-game win over the Tampa Bay Rays received an average television rating 32% below the previous World Series low.

The six games on Fox averaged a 5.2 rating, 12 share and 9,785,000 viewers, Nielsen Media Research said Wednesday. The previous low was a 7.6 rating, 12 share and 12,660,000 viewers for the San Francisco Giants’ four-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers in 2012.

This year’s rating was down 36% from the 8.1 rating, 16 share and average of 14,067,000 viewers for the Washington Nationals’ seven-game win over the Houston Astros last year.
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Agreed with Rob and CT, both. The analytics people are focused on the wrong thing.

If you want me to watch a baseball game in the middle of May, the point is not what position the team will finish in the standings. At that point, you probably have a good idea that the Orioles are having another bad year, but it's still possible they could figure something out. If this season's 8-teams-per-league playoff format stays, wherein any team that isn't awful gets into the postseason, the difference between an 84 win team and a 90 win team in the regular season is very limited.

The point of an early-season games is whether the action is exciting and fun. And the "three true outcomes" baseball analytics folks have been pushing for are rarely exciting and fun.
 
xkxrx said:
Not being a baseball fan, can you explain what analytics are and how they affect watchability?
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Far too complex to fully explain to a non-fan, but basically, computer nerds have used data collected over numerous seasons to determine such things as precisely what defensive alignment stands the best chance to get each hitter out, what angle the bat needs to pass through the strike zone at to have the best chance of producing a home run, what the chances of scoring are in every possible situation, how many hitters a pitcher is likely to be at maximum effectiveness against, etc.

The "three true outcomes" referred to in an earlier post are a strikeout, a walk and a home run, only two of which involve hitting the ball, which is generally what starts any exciting action in baseball. As a result of dependence on analytics, far too much of each game is being taken up by batters looking at pitches or swinging at and missing them. Singles, doubles and triples, which used to be the overwhelming majority of hits in the average game, have declined while home runs -- which, while they all score runs, they lack any baserunning, fielding or throwing excitement -- have increased.

There's much more to this, but it's probably not of much interest to non-fans. Suffice it to say, though, that for people who have been following the game for decades, such as myself, the current state of baseball is nearly unwatchable. In this year's World Series, only the wild last few innings of Game 4 bore any resemblance to the event-filled baseball of eras past. The rest of the time, there was hardly anything remotely interesting happening at all except for the occasional baseball being hit 400+ feet and over the fence. And since analytics has resulted in many batters taking exactly the same swing at the ball regardless of game situation, the home runs lacked both variety and context. Teams used to score two runs in an inning by hitting three singles, drawing a walk, pushing another run across on a ground ball to an infielder, then maybe hitting into a spectacular double play to end the inning. In 2020, that two-run inning was more likely to go like this: walk, strikeout, strikeout, home run, strikeout.
 
Baseball is in some trouble. It is an “atmospheric” sport where many come to the stadium just for that. Until we get fans back in house this sport has challenges. Plus many would agree the games are too slow and lack the action of the NFL or NBA. Don’t pretend to have any answers here.
 
seatownmedia said:
Baseball is in some trouble. It is an “atmospheric” sport where many come to the stadium just for that. Until we get fans back in house this sport has challenges. Plus many would agree the games are too slow and lack the action of the NFL or NBA. Don’t pretend to have any answers here.
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Baseball attendance has been good and getting better at all levels of the game (MLB, minors, college, independent leagues), but TV ratings have been dying of old age. The thing is, people want to go to the games and spend a nice afternoon or evening at the ballpark, but it's just not very exciting to watch on television.

It doesn't help that some of the RSNs (**cough** Fox Sports Nets owned by Sinclair **cough**) are being taken off of the non-cable/satellite platforms. Maybe MLB teams should reassess its television situation and put at least some games back on OTA stations, besides just the Saturday afternoon games and World Series on Fox.
 
The Babe is supposed to have said (something close to) "if I had not gone for a homer every time my batting average would have been much higher".

I think that says a lot about the current state of the game.
 
Basically, hitting a home run dramatically increases a team's chance to win, and when there are multiple home runs in a game, whichever team hits more homers usually wins. Otherwise, it's 'hit a homer, strike out the other team at least a dozen times.'
 
onairb2014 said:
Basically, hitting a home run dramatically increases a team's chance to win, and when there are multiple home runs in a game, whichever team hits more homers usually wins. Otherwise, it's 'hit a homer, strike out the other team at least a dozen times.'
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Good pitching and run support is what wins games.
 
Don CT said:
Good pitching and run support is what wins games.
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But with a very few exceptions, mostly top-tier pitchers, it doesn't sell baseball to advertisers. There's a wise old saying: "Chicks dig the long ball."
 
I dunno about that last remark. We here in Phoenix built an extraordinarily expensive monument to the game of beisball yet every attempt to drive more fans into it relies on the amenities of said monument instead of the actual sport being played. Amenities such as bottomless beer, apoplexy producing hot dogs, suites so one doesn't share the sweatiness of the common fan and, oh yes, a swimming pool. Something most of us here have at home as a utility is now a featured attraction at the <ahem> ball park. Kaminsky is turning over in his grave.

Meanwhile, the average beisball fan is white of hair (if any), large of paunch, and lover of peanuts and nachos you must hold with both hands. All of which costs close to your daughter's first year in a modest college of higher education. Most modern sports fans have long left the friendly confines of the ball park for other sports, some of which have actually been imported from foreign shores. (Gimmie an oh-my-gawd.)

This ain't my youth where every young lad dreamed of wearing the pin stripes and emulating numbers 3 and 7. No, this is the world where a pitcher, on a good day, can hold off the entire other team with his finesse, bore the hell out of fandom and make the announcers earn their money by spitting out endless quantities of statistics and good old stories about centuries and players past with colorful nicknames like "Dizzy", "The Man", "Babe" and "Shoeless".

It's said that golf ruins a good walk. Beisball ruins a good nap. Unless it's the bottom of the ninth, the bases are loaded, your team trails by one run, there are two outs and the next pitch will determine civic bragging rights for the next nine months.
 
Keep in mind that this baseball season was only 60 games and started much later than usual. I have been a baseball fan for the past 35 years but I had a really hard time getting into it this season, especially with all the interruptions and cancelled games. It does not surprise me at all that the ratings dropped so much. With that said, I don't deny that people are losing interest in baseball. Just look at all the cord cutting and number of people that are cancelling cable who no longer receive sports networks (myself included).
 
Why would MLB do that?
 
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