World Series ratings are in free fall, from a share in the low 50s in the late 1970s to a share in the high teens these days. Sure, some of it owes to the proliferation of cable channels and alternate media during that period, but that is still a precipitous decline.
Me, I skipped Game 1 entirely, watched the end of Games 2 and 3 and paid for the lack of sleep the following days at work, and turned it off last night when the Rockies failed to score in the bottom of the 7th.
The British Telegraph nailed it:
This series, as the past few, created little excitement. Television ratings were mediocre, games ending in the eastern time zone after 1am. There was no buzz, no controversy. There was just the Red Sox, the new Yankees, if you will, on their relentless march.
Parity? What parity?
The St. Petersburg Times blames the TV schedule for ruining this postseason. I can't disagree. The Phillies-Rockies games started at 3pm, 3pm, and 9pm eastern. No game in prime time that I could watch with my kids. Game 4, which was not necessary, was scheduled to start at 10pm eastern. First pitch, two hours after my kids went to bed. Ridiculous.
Have league championship games end at 2:45 a.m. on the East Coast? Push every World Series game to the brink of midnight, and beyond? Blame television ratings.
It's as if no one is in charge of protecting the game's future. Essentially, baseball is chasing off casual and younger fans in search of a few extra television dollars in the interim.
At some point, the clock turned too late, the calendar turned too far and television's influence on the schedule turned too intrusive. At some point, the World Series got away from us.
All that for an 18 share? OR - an 18 share because of it?
2 comments:
I have to think that doping scandals aren't helping either. If we have to watch muscle bound robots, we'd rather watch the NFL.
In the '50s and '60s, the games were played in daylight and treated as national holidays. By now there is a full generation of would-be fans who were in bed before the middle innings of the Fall Classic. Since the season is treated as a marathon, they need to sell the postseason as a sprint to the finish. Marathon games in the dead of night is not the right approach.
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