World Series sets record low TV ratings for every game - ouch

I know you are trolling, but for me the bigger issue was no crowd. Less exciting without a crowd going wild.

sanchobaile wrote:

Surprised there hasn't been more talk about the fact that this WS deserves a huge asterisk. They played less than half a season!!! that's why it's irrelevant...

162 games is too much, though.

They gave a fair chance to have two teams make it to the World Series.

And they played in October, which is normal.

It was a good series and I assume most baseball fans enjoyed it.

The detractors aren't fans.

I do with they didn't do the DH for each game.

I like it when the pitcher has to hit.

Although I agree with much of what you said, one thing that makes the NBA different is that it really is an international game. Indications are that TV playoff ratings in 2020 actually grew internationally. Having spent some time in the Philippines, basketball is really the most popular sport there and the NBA is followed intently.

The 2019 finals ratings were down from previous years with the Warriors in the US, but broke records in Canada. Not only was game 6 the most watched NBA game ever, but it was the most watched TV program in all of 2019. If Luka Doncic makes it into the finals in the next few years viewership from Europe will set records. And the whole BLM thing is not really that polarizing or controversial outside of the US.

The NBA has really been the only one that is really in your face with it. The others are pretty minor in comparision.

ThoughtsLeader is pretty spot on with most sports becoming more and more of a niche or only interesting if your team is playing. Football is the only national pastime these days.

rojo wrote:

3. The games are too expensive, on too many obscure cable channels and are on too late at night to attract new fans. How are you supposed to get kids to fall in love with the game if their parents have to pay$500 to take him or her to the game? If they can't watch most games because they start at like 9 pm.?

Plus the leagues screw the adult fans as well. Let's say you are a baseball fan. You devote 150 nights of your year to your team. Then they make the playoffs and MLB puts 2 of 4 1st round playoff games in the middle of the day when you are at work and can't watch it.

So games start too late but always too early? Never stop being you Robert.

Runner10287 wrote:

rojo wrote:

3. The games are too expensive, on too many obscure cable channels and are on too late at night to attract new fans. How are you supposed to get kids to fall in love with the game if their parents have to pay$500 to take him or her to the game? If they can't watch most games because they start at like 9 pm.?

Plus the leagues screw the adult fans as well. Let's say you are a baseball fan. You devote 150 nights of your year to your team. Then they make the playoffs and MLB puts 2 of 4 1st round playoff games in the middle of the day when you are at work and can't watch it.

Lol nice

So games start too late but always too early? Never stop being you Robert.

I don't think politicization had anything to do with declining ratings. There wasn't that much of it apparent in baseball in any case.

This may have been the first year that almost or even all of the regular season was concurrent with another major sport's regular season, and a lot of people probably never got into baseball in 2020 at all. Especially since they couldn't actually go to games to drum up enthusiasm.

Plus there's no overlooking the fact that no one cares about the Tampa Bay Rays. Not even Tampa and St. Pete.

Games are later at night. Zzzzzz.

There are many more reasons, many already listed, but the biggest problem is that while young attention spans get shorter, baseball games get longer. This is a problem MLB really isn't addressing. They may have made some minor adjustments, but they really have to cut down on the time between pitches. The games are excruciatingly slow and long.

It's all kind of said, because some of these MLB athletes are rather incredible.

mofong wrote:

Runner10287 wrote:

Lol nice

So games start too late but always too early? Never stop being you Robert.

The sports leagues are controlled by tv who are only interested in how much money they can make NOW. They don't care how that affects leagues in the future. If it is negative, they just drop that sport, act like it doesn't exist and move on to another.

That's pretty bad considering a lot of people are in their homes and not going out due to Covid-19. Having said that, Tamps is a smaller market area but LA is huge.

Oh, and for the record, I didn't watch one single minute of the World Series. Baseball just isn't my cup of tea.

mofong wrote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_television_ratings#Viewership/rating_by_year

All-time low ratings for the 5 games played, and all-time low average by a wide margin. Too much social justice preaching amirite?!?!

I mean, the MLB did a bunch of SJW preaching too. I watched opening day, which included an 8:xx minute moment of silence and giant BLM banners everywhere.

I didn't watch another game all season.

Total league payroll across MLB seems to have peaked in 2017 at around $4.2 billion. From 1999 to 2017, total league payroll had been growing - in fits and starts - at about $150 million per year, every year. Since 2017, total league payroll has plateaued, or even dropped a little bit.

Payroll is always related to team and league revenue, generated (in order of importance) by TV deals, licensing agreements for sponsors and merchandise, and stadium ticket/concession sales. With declining interest in baseball over recent years and almost no prospect for expanding TV markets to other countries, let alone younger Americans, is this the beginning of a sustained decline in league payroll? The shortened season is probably the biggest reason for this year's poor ratings - many fans will put a mental asterisk next to this season. Surely ratings would have been better in a 'normal' year.

It is going to be fascinating to watch in the coming years, as revenues from all sources drop and MLB teams try to negotiate with the players for lower salaries. Grown men will cry. And cry and cry. The public whining is going to be spectacular. There will still be enough revenue to pay players very well, but I'd guess that Bryce Harper's 13-year $330 million contract will be the high water mark for salaries. Especially for a player with a, what, WAR of 3?? Extrapolate that, and it's 39 extra wins for the Phillies over the length of his career compared to an 'average' player. That's $8.4 million per win. We won't see that again.

The other big question, aside from total league and team payroll, will be how the huge imbalance in salaries within teams plays out. Sure, some players are better than others and deserve more, but payrolls are comically lopsided when a .301 hitter makes 15 times more than a .279 hitter. Will that just get worse as Scott Boras and other alpha-agents get the most for their clients in a world of dwindling revenue? Or will other forces level the field?

The current plateau in league payroll has nothing to do with free agency - it post-dates that by decades. It has little to do with politicization of sports or of Covid19 - it pre-dates those events. Something else was starting to happen that the league thus far has shown no capacity to address. But they have tried - namely, by new rules to speed up games. But if that's the only problem you've identified - that people are tired of your product and they want to stop watching and go home sooner - you can bet your future is pretty bleak.

Sounds like you just don’t love baseball. That’s fine, I don’t either. But I don’t pretend like I was turned away because of 8 minutes of tributes before the first of ~60-100 4 hour games.

MLB is BLM backwards. Maybe this has something to do with the lower ratings?

bearded ultra runner wrote:

This is because of the BLM protests in sports. People don't want poltics in their sports. Right guys? Guys?

+1

People were harping on the NBA ratings but one difference there is the younger viewership & the ways in which NBA content is being consumed. A lot of younger folks aren't streaming cable. The NBA is all over various social media channels in ways the MLB cannot even touch. & look at the disparity between stars alone in each sport. Lebron has 70+ million IG followers. A handful of baseball players have 1-2 million. I would be a lot more concerned about baseball than basketball if I was a right leaning LRC-er concerned about the protests.

mofong wrote:

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

Also hurting this argument is the fact that the ratings for a World Series with any of the Red Sox, Yankees or Cubs would be better for MLB. All high-payroll teams.

Dodgers/Astros ratings were better than Dodgers/Red Sox, hurting your argument that subbing in the Red Sox for the Dodgers would bump ratings. They already had their big market team in the WS this year.

Every year the ratings go down, so it's probably not fair to conclude from a year-to-year decrease that the Boston market pulls less than Houston.. Houston is also a huge market, so even if it did that's not much of a point you're making.

Tampa is the market that MLB and anyone with common sense would sub out. Do you think MLB execs wouldn't much prefer Yankees-Dodgers or Red Sox-Dodgers to Rays-Dodgers? please.

TPP1 wrote:

Although I agree with much of what you said, one thing that makes the NBA different is that it really is an international game. Indications are that TV playoff ratings in 2020 actually grew internationally. Having spent some time in the Philippines, basketball is really the most popular sport there and the NBA is followed intently.

The 2019 finals ratings were down from previous years with the Warriors in the US, but broke records in Canada. Not only was game 6 the most watched NBA game ever, but it was the most watched TV program in all of 2019. If Luka Doncic makes it into the finals in the next few years viewership from Europe will set records. And the whole BLM thing is not really that polarizing or controversial outside of the US.

Gotcha.

THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:

mofong wrote:

Dodgers/Astros ratings were better than Dodgers/Red Sox, hurting your argument that subbing in the Red Sox for the Dodgers would bump ratings. They already had their big market team in the WS this year.

Every year the ratings go down, so it's probably not fair to conclude from a year-to-year decrease that the Boston market pulls less than Houston.. Houston is also a huge market, so even if it did that's not much of a point you're making.

Tampa is the market that MLB and anyone with common sense would sub out. Do you think MLB execs wouldn't much prefer Yankees-Dodgers or Red Sox-Dodgers to Rays-Dodgers? please.

You said the ratings would be better if the series included the Red Sox.

I showed that the ratings were better with the Dodgers than the Red Sox in recent years.

Thus, I don’t think the ratings drop can be attributed to not having a big market team. Of course it would be bigger if it had two big market teams.

I think these are probably too anecdotal for my liking. Yes, #1 is true but that's more of a last 10-15 years issue, not the acceleration of this trend we've seen the last few years.

#2 may be true, but that doesn't seem to have hurt the NFL, which has a ton of player movement. Also, the NBA has very young and loyal fans who seemingly love player empowerment/movement. The issue isn't having them as fans or acquiring them, it's getting them to watch games on TV (instead of streaming, on social etc.). Maybe #2 affects fans in the 40+ demographic.

#3, the World Series is on FOX and it's been moved up to 8pm. Definitely when it was on at 9 ET that was a problem. Locally no teams have their games start later than 7 or 7:30 (for MLB/NBA). Tickets have been expensive for years, and I'd say NFL is probably the least approachable as far as going to the game, yet has suffered the least TV ratings-wise. I will agree the weird start times of NBA/MLB playoff games certainly doesn't help matters for early playoff games, but apples-to-apples is the World Series/NBA Finals and the ratings there are dropping majorly and you can't blame what channel they are or the start time. As I said before, I don't think the NBA is hurting for young fans.

One issue not mentioned which is applicable this year is that the people who would be baseball fans are also those more likely to be hyper focused on the election.

Anectdotally, I can say this is true with some of my acquaintances.