🏀 KuBuckets Archive

Since a few people here show some interest in baseball, here's my rant against MLB, FOX, and ESPN.

The playoff schedule is out. If you haven't seen it, there are 2 games today, FOUR games Friday, TWO games Saturday, TWO games Sunday, and FOUR games Monday.

Anyone else see something wrong with this? Four games on Friday and Monday, starting at 12:30 Eastern time, you know when most Americans are working, and only two games on Saturday and Sunday, you know, when most Americans are not working, and presumably would watch multiple games all day long, NCAA tournament style.

Here's what's driving this insanity. MLB is scared to death of football. This is not an anti-football rant, but I tire of 12 months of football coverage that is now prevalent. MLB is afraid fans won't watch games if college football games or pro football games are on. So they back down and allow the network they pay the most to televise these games to tell MLB when the games will be instead of MLB saying to them here's when the games are going to be.

My biggest complaint is the relationship between MLB and Fox. Fox doesn't care one lick about baseball. They used to do a game of the week every Saturday, all season long. The only free baseball available for fans nationwide. Two years ago they launched their cable sports channel FS1. They moved the Saturday games to FS1, except for a few and treated the pennant race with little respect, so games with major watchability between attractive teams and playoff implications get relegated to cable. Not a great way to build your audience.

To add to the travesty that is Fox and MLB they won't even be televising games through this first round of playoffs, even on their FS1. The ALCS and NLCS get TBS and Fox/FS1 treatment. Unbelievable! MLB is committing suicide with this relationship.

ESPN is another player in this rant. They pretend to care, showing a game or two a week, but a week after the super bowl, as MLB players get to camp for spring training, ESPN starts talking about the draft, what players each team needs, they even have specials on it. No talk about baseball. Playoffs comes and ESPN does one measly game.

So try to watch tomorrow while at work, I know I can't, but I could a lot on Saturday and Sunday, but MLB doesn't want me to.

@wissoxfan83 What? The ChiSox aren't in it and you rant all season about how long the games are and now you rantin' cause they're not scheduled so you could watch more games on your days off. Just giving you a hard time. Besides, you should be happy. LSU football will be home this weekend. Sad for the South Carolina folks and tough time they going through.

@brooksmd I'm going up to Chicago this weekend actually, not an LSU fan anyways. Gonna hang with my kids for a few days.

@wissoxfan83

Here’s what’s driving this insanity. MLB is scared to death of football. This is not an anti-football rant, but I tire of 12 months of football coverage that is now prevalent. MLB is afraid fans won’t watch games if college football games or pro football games are on.

Have you considered that MLB might be right? Football, both professional and college, are considerably more popular than baseball and given the choice, most fans, other than those hardcore baseball fans will watch football over baseball. Over the last 20-30 years the popularity of baseball and Ice Hockey has decreased considerably to the point that other than the playoffs and a games in a few Northern cities, you cannot watch ice hockey games other than on cable networks. Baseball games are regularly played throughout the season during the day on weekdays, why should it be any different for the payoffs? Just askin'...

Football ratings, even college, have historically crushed baseball ratings. The Astros-Yankees game Tuesday was the highest rated baseball game on ESPN in 12 years which I assume was the Yankees-Red Sox series that year, but the viewership was about 5 million people which is still way under national NFL games.

Baseball is regionally popular. Football is nationally popular.

That means that for the playoffs, weekend games would be popular in the cities with participating teams, but would likely not do well in cities without teams.

Weekday games may attract other viewers that are general sports fans, even if they are not fans of the teams involved.

Without the Yankees, Angels and Red Sox, the networks worry that they can't draw big national viewership, even though the Royals, Cardinals, Tigers, Diamondbacks, Padres and Rays were all the most popular primetime program in their respective markets. Think about that. One fifth of the league was basically the Seinfeld/Friends of the primetime TV market. I didn't see a single Dbacks or Padres game this year, but chances are if you lived in Phoenix or San Diego, you watched them a few times this summer.

But again, that's a regional popularity, not a national one. This is why people believe (incorrectly) that baseball is dying. Other than the Yankees, there aren't any baseball teams that are popular across the country. The midwest has been Royal and Cardinal crazy for the last couple of years, but chances are if you live outside Kansas/Missouri/Nebraska/Iowa/Arkansas that probably doesn't mean much to you.

However, football is nationally popular. The Cowboys, Packers, Giants, Raiders, Patriots, Bears, Washington football team, and Steelers all have pretty strong followings nationally. You can go almost anywhere in the country and find fans of those eight teams, and not just a few here or there. I know people that love the Packers that have never even been to Wisconsin.

That's the big difference with football vs. baseball.

@JayHawkFanToo @justanotherfan @Texas-Hawk-10

I really think baseball has let this happen. They have let the games go longer and longer. They have let the national media go ape crazy over east coast teams, to the detriment of midwest and western teams. I want to see a commissioner who fights for baseball to get it back to national respectability. Bud Selig let it lapse. It was still nationally relevant when he became commissioner and he just wanted to keep the owners happy, to heck with the fan. And they've got another puppet in there now.

@wissoxfan83 You definitely got a point. During the season anytime NYY and Boston play that will be the game of the week in this area. Wouldn't walk across the street to see either one.