Baseball LCS ratings down! The world is coming to an end!

But we're not comparing the ratings to 1980. This was a 43% drop in ALCS ratings just compared to last year. What was the only difference? No Yankees.

This shows that when New York does well, MLB does well. Also that watching Jeter in the playoffs has become an October tradition for many. Look at how the ratings for the NBA finals dropped after Jordan retired after the '98 season - Jeter means just as much to baseball as MJ did to the NBA in the 1990s

It's ridiculous that the Yankees make more money for MLB than any other team, yet the playoff system is rigged against them.

 

Again, Manky, take your foolishness back to the Jeter thread where it belongs.

 

What is foolish about that?

The ALCS ratings were almost halved compared to last year.

2011: Detroit and Texas
2010: New York and Texas (both 6 game series)

There is no other way to interpret these numbers.

 

Top 5 most ridiculous things I've ever read on this site since finding it five years ago. And there's a lot of contenders for that list.

 

The numbers don't lie.

 

Someone look up the decline in ratings for the NBA finals from 1998 to 1999.

 

Seriously, you have a thread for this shit. Go back there already. Everybody else, please do not feed the troll.

 

But they, along with the Patriots, get the lions share (as opposed to Lions' share) of national TV games. It's not like the networks and ESPN decided that everyone should get equal coverage -- unless you have Sunday Ticket or go to a bar that has it, good luck getting Raiders games in Boston or Panthers games in San Francisco.

They're "force-feeding" the teams they do, baseball and football, because they generate the most interest. Obviously it runs deeper than market size, or the Rangers and Cowboys would be a lot closer in coverage amount. But it's not as though TV can create a following for a team out of whole cloth. Even if they set out to do this as their one goal in life, they couldn't in and of themselves make the Jaguars the most popular football team or the Royals the most popular baseball team in America.

 

So a couple of thoughts.

* As much as I hate to agree with MankyJimy, he's right about what the lack of the Yankees or another marquee franchise - and really there are just three, maybe four or five with the Dodgers and Mets? I was having this discussion over lunch yesterday with an old friend in the business who covered baseball for several years in New York. He and I agreed that everyone wants to see the Yankees lose, but they should be careful what they wish for. Because after that happens, then you have baseball playoffs with no Yankees. It's just like the NCAA Tournament. Everyone wants upsets. But then you get a final game like we had last year.

* One enormous reason that baseball series don't get good ratings is because people don't want to follow a multiple-game series. They love the NCAA and NFL one-and-done format. It would be interesting to see the baseball championship game's ratings if they were a series of one-and-done games, held on TV-friendly nights. Of course, that would be absurd, but I bet the ratings would skyrocket. You may counter that elimination games don't rate, either, but by that time, people aren't invested at all. I love baseball more than I love my kids, I used to joke before I actually, you know, had any kids. But with daytime commitments, kids and dogs to round up every night, bills to sort and pay, an alarm clock to set for the morning, errands to run, and housecleaning to keep up on, I even find it hard as hell to commit to appointment viewing of baseball playoff series. And I'm the base.

 

The Indianapolis Colts have a decade's worth of data to show you.