Baseball's error
Once again, MLB ignores its best fans.
Baseball's error
Rich Hofmann, Daily News Sports Columnist
This is not a rant about the Phillies and Rockies getting screwed by MLB because its first two playoff games are in the afternoon. Hopefully, it's a little more subtle than that. This isn't about big-city bias. It is about baseball's misguided view of itself.
The fact is, nobody in the country watches Division Series baseball games during the afternoon outside of the fans of the teams involved. But baseball views itself as The National Pastime, and it sees that all NFL and NBA playoff games are televised live nationally, and it won't start the season a couple of days earlier or extend it a couple of days later, so we are left with rabid fans of participating teams unable to watch the games.
It's absurd. It is a schedule designed for sportswriters and shut-ins.
In 2007, the Phillies and Rockies got the same raw deal with two days games in Philadelphia to open their series. The first one drew 3.17 million viewers nationwide, the second 3.3 million viewers. I'm not a math major but if my ciphering is even close, somewhere between one-third and one-half of the people who watched those games were from Philadelphia and Colorado. Most everyone else who watched accidentally bumped into the game while looking for a rerun of "Cash Cab."
None of the other sports inconvenience its fans like this. There is no reason why baseball couldn't do regional telecasts on weekdays in the first round of the playoffs. The standard would be simple. There would be two time slots, 6 pm and 9 pm in the East. The slot that made the most sense for the home team would be the place the game would fall.
I guarantee you that the ratings would be higher. I guarantee you that the fans of the teams involved -- the people who really care; in many cases, the only people who care -- would be thrilled.
Who would be mad? The infinitesimal number of Americans without an allegiance to a team who like to watch games in the afternoon.
Why cater to them?
I agree with Rich. Pro sports in general have become slaves to TV and the fans and the sports themselves are the ones who suffer. Seasons become longer and more drawn out, playoff games are spread out too far or played at bad times of the day. If teams play from across the country in a 7 game series, they end up playing a 2-3-2 series to limit travel days and keep up the TV schedule instead of playing a 2-2-1-1-1 series. In what sort of screwed up world does a team with home field advantage have to play 3 straight games on the road in a series? That's insane.— JimG
Comment removed.- Don;t you think that the people who sell advertising for MLB and their network partners have done a LOT of research on this? It's hardly in their interest to minimize viewership, guys. It's all about ratings points, after all.— Bake McBride
- Productivity in the workplace will be down 250% those days...— craigaroo74
- At least the day games will be 20 degrees warmer!— DerbyBound
- Comment removed.
- Well put, Rich. This schedule is b.s.— andwhysee
- Thank God for Tivo. Now I just need to stay clear of TV and radio so I don't find out the score before I watch the game. C'mon, MLB....wake up.— PhillyFan_in_NoVA
- I like it, i start work at 6am and leave at 2:30. The late games kill me. I realize I am the minority here, but hey. I won't be dead tired by the time the weekend rolls around.— jg23
- Damned if you do, damned if you dont. Wouldn't we be reading about how the game doesn't care about kids if the games began at 9?— Mills
- MLB has been doing everything possible for some time now to kill the game. No revenue sharing, steriods, no salary cap, games in NOVEMBER. Why is this a surprise? The baseball owners only care about themselves, not the game. Baseball is dieing a slow death and the owners only have themselves to blame. I'm a Philly fan living in Florida and the only teams you can watch during the regular season are the Yankees and Red Sox. What does that tell you?— craig123
Oh, boy, just shut up and watch the games already. Enjoy it. If you want to watch, do what you have to do and watch. Ugh.— Ump Al- At least its good for kids. 8:30 starts take kids right out of watching. They can get out of school and watch. 7pm would be good for everyone, but that makes too much sense.— gluteman
- Comment removed.
- They're not honoring tradition by scheduling day games. They're honoring the Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers. Philly gets no respect at the reigning WS champ. Screwed again by Fox.
