For me, the
World Series is huge. It is certainly on my TV every night that there’s a game.
Why? Well, it’s America’s national past time, and there’s nothing better than
the World Series. However, baseball is no longer the way that Americans pass
their time, not even during the World Series.
A big
ratings boost for World Series game seven made MLB executives breathe a sigh of
relief, as it ensured that the 2014 Fall Classic would not be the least watched
of all time. It came darn close though.
This year’s
Series averaged 13.8 million viewers per game. An average of 8.2 percent of
U.S. households watched the game. Nielson calls that a rating of 8.2.
These are
atrocious numbers. Only two other World Series (2012 and 2008) averaged fewer viewers
per game than this year. Prior to 2000, not one World Series averaged less than
20 million viewers per game.
Baseball’s
World Series has become a local affair, not a national one. In the Kansas City
market, 77 percent of televisions had the game on, so there was obviously huge
excitement for it there. But unlike the Super Bowl, it is no longer must-see
television across the nation.
I think that
there are multiple reasons for the declining viewership.
Fox/the Fox broadcast
crew
In World
Series where Fox’s Joe Buck is the lead play-by-play broadcaster, the average
viewership is 18 million onlookers per game. In Fall Classics where Buck isn’t
behind the microphone, the World Series averages 33.1 million viewers per game.
Coincidence? I’m afraid so. Even though the “Joe Buck Sucks” Facebook page has
over 33,000 likes, I don’t think that even any of even those likers, or haters
if you will, would go so far as to not watch a World Series simply because of
Buck.
The reason
that the numbers drop off so severely when Buck is calling games is because the
popularity of baseball today is a fraction of what it used to be, regardless of
who is calling it. If Joe Buck had been calling games in the 1980s, when his
dad Jack Buck was announcing the World Series, I think that the numbers would improve.
With that
said however, I think that Fox does a mediocre job at best with their baseball
coverage. From a production standpoint, they hit out of the park, and all of
the people who work behind the scenes for Fox Sports do an excellent job. It’s
the ones who are in front of the camera who are the problem.
Lets first
start with Buck. The game of baseball struggles with popularity because it
isn’t exciting enough. It needs a play-by-play man who can make it exciting.
That’s the job of a broadcaster, and Joe Buck does not do his job. Red Sox fans
enjoy the excitement of play-by-play broadcasters Joe Castiglione, Don Orsillo,
and Dave O’Brien, whose voices convey the highs and lows of the game. Buck
speaks in a monotone, which leaves me aching for excitement. I think that there
are better options, such as MLB Network’s Matt Vasgersian or ESPN’s Dan
Shulman, for the top broadcasting job in the game.
As for the
rest of the crew, Harold Reynolds talks way too much. So much so that Tom
Verducci, perhaps the most insightful of the trio, can hardly get a word in,
which is frustrating at times as a viewer.
Speed of the game
The speed
of the game is definitely a big part of why the game is so unpopular. I wrote a
column a few weeks ago explaining what the executives of the game of baseball
need to do to speed it up, and in a nutshell, they need to create new rules to
ensure that batters don’t step out of the box as much as they do, enforce their
rule that forces pitchers to deliver the ball within 12 seconds, and to limit
the number of pitchers on a team’s roster so that there are fewer pitching
changes and more offense.
Baseball is
a dying sport but it’s not dead yet, and there is still time to save it.
Speeding it up puts the MLB well on their way to doing so, but there also needs
to be more offense and more offensive stars for people to watch.
Length of season
Each MLB
team plays 162 games in a season. Every NFL team plays 16. That is why the NFL
is way more popular than baseball. The number of games in a season means that
each game counts for less, and makes it so that there is very little excitement
generated for your average regular season game. When you watch the NFL, part of
the draw is that each game counts so much. I’m not suggesting that the MLB cuts
their season down by a lot, but they could do just fine with 102 regular season
games.
More on TV
According
to Nielsen, the average household receives 190 channels. Only one of those is
carrying the World Series. This is an unfixable problem. When the World Series
first came to TV, most people only got ABC, NBC, and CBS. Now if you want
sports you can turn to any of the 35 cable sports networks, or your local cable
sports network(s). There are so much more competition for out attention than
there used to be, which, I think, hurts the MLB’s ratings.
***
It is a
collection of all of those things that lead to the lower ratings that the MLB
has been getting for its World Series. It’s also interesting to note, however,
that even though the national ratings are poor, every team has a local cable
sports network that carries all of their games, with the exception of
blackouts, and the ratings for teams in their respective local markets are
fairly good. Baseball consistently does well on local cable TV, which means
that there is some popularity for the game in areas where there are teams—but
it’s important to remember that there are 30 teams in the MLB.
You can
enjoy the game of baseball, but as a fan, you can’t ignore these numbers. They
are too important to keeping the game alive and well, and if you don’t focus on
how to bring them up now, the MLB may never do so. When Commissioner-elect Rob
Manfred steps into office, he needs to take immediate action on the field, to
help generate excitement off the field.
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