djfrresh said:
i remeber when espn tv did espn baseball doubleheaders how come they stop doing it.
Probably because ESPN has a hard enough time keeping viewers interested in one 4 hour nationally-televised baseball game - more or less - another 4 hour game.
I think two trends are at play:
1.) The proliferation of baseball games on TV.
30 years ago it used to be that only bigger games were broadcast on TV - so nationally televised games were a big event back then, when baseball wasn't on every day.
But today, nearly all regular-seasons games of your local MLB team are on TV each night - so you have lots of chances to watch your local baseball team on TV.
So unless your local team is playing in the nationally televised game - you need a pretty good "hook" to get you to watch two teams you know nothing about, and don't care about, play each other.
2.) Teenagers / Younger Demographics ratings declining for regular season nationally-televised baseball on TV.
Colin Cowherd, ESPN Radio, has talked on a couple occasions, once even while interviewing Joe Buck, that the ratings for regular season nationally televised baseball games have been going down among teenagers/younger demographics over the past 10 years or so.
Colin says that the decreasing ratings point out that on a nice summer weekend afternoon, teenagers aren't sitting in the house watching baseball on TV (or willing to spend 4 hours watching batters play with their batting gloves, or the 4th relief pitcher warm up after one batter, or throw to first base yet again).
He says they have busy lives, and they'll go to a stadium to watch the game in-person, but fewer and fewer are watching it on TV.
Also, many are now into X-games skateboarding and BMXing and things like that vs. stick and ball sports (with the NFL being the exception which proves the rule).
I love the sport and I watch it - but apparently teenagers and the younger demographics aren't all that interested.
