Dan Dennis said:
teevee said:
They need to let baseball go the ratings don't justify it.
Well, ratings in markets other than NYC. If the Yankees were in the ALCS, even with afternoon start times the ratings would be higher. Nobody outside of NYC, it seems, cares about baseball, and the ratings unfortunately bear that out.
I was listening to Randy Galloway the other night on ESPN 103.3 FM and he said the reason the Sunday game was postponed was because (a) Fox didn't want to deal with another rain delay (it was an afternoon game not a night game) and (b) their regular Sunday night lineup would fare better ratings-wise than a baseball game with rain delays (the Saturday ratings bear that out). So he's saying Fox told MLB to postpone, and MLB agreed. Won't see the same thing happen today with the AL Championship possibly on the line.
The conventional wisdom is this:
There are a handful of teams that guarantee a high rating because they have national followings. They are the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Cubs and Giants. To a lesser extent, the Mets, Angels, Athletics, White Sox, Phillies, Cardinals and Braves will also get a decent numbers of viewers.
I'd also like to believe that if heritage teams like the Pirates, Orioles and Indians ever become consistent winners again, they also will get some respectable numbers.
The thing is this: the aforementioned teams
have to play each other. A meeting with the Yankees or Red Sox would be most beneficial.
Dallas-Fort Worth may be the fifth-largest TV market, but the Texas Rangers don't catch the attention of the casual fan outside of the Metroplex, north Texas and probably Oklahoma -- even if they were in the World Series last year. The Tigers have been good for some years now, but they have no profile outside of Michigan. Same with the Brewers in Milwaukee.
I don't care about
The X Factor (what makes it so much different from
American Idol, anyway?), but Fox has so much riding on this program that they can't afford to have it preempted or moved. I agree with others who said that the worst thing that could've happened was the Yankees getting bounced in the Division Series. Fox needed a Yankees-Cardinals World Series, or a Yanks-Phils rematch. Now I expect this WS to be among the lowest-rated in recent years, and this is coming form a huge baseball (and P.O.'d Yankees) fan.
7/8 East. The bad weather really did push the start time over at Comerica Park in Detroit. The Rangers-looks like they're winning 7-3 in 11 over Detroit. Goodnight, and Big Balls.
