Making the World Series relevant again

[Domeshot17]

I think day games would be a bad idea, especially if you had an east coast and west coast team. I don't think you are going to see some mad rush of kids who watch.

You have a lot of programming options, Kids can just play out the world series on their xbox whenever they want, its a long playoff stretch and gets deep into the heart of football season. So many reasons the games are down.

[SI1020]

Originally Posted by Irishsox1

If you want the worlds series to be "relevant" like it was in the 60's and 70's, make only 5 channels available on TV, get rid of video games, the internet, cell phones, DVR, DVD's and computers.

Also, the world series wasn't as popular as many think it was back then. Most world series games were day games.

I would have to disagree with that. The World Series used to be a much bigger deal than it is now. In fact, I'm so old that I remember when it was the biggest deal of all. The games were all played in the day then. Imagine. The first WS game to be played at night was game 4 of the 1971 contest between the Orioles and Pirates. The Pirates spotted the Orioles a 3-0 lead and then stormed back behind the strong performances of relievers Bruce Kison and Dave Giusti, winning 4-3. Gradually more and more games were played at night. The last ever day game was played indoors in Minnesota in 1987. The last outdoor day game was in Detroit in 1984. I think baseball is hurting itself by having no World Series day games. I also think that the season and playoffs are too long, but I doubt that will ever change. Commissioner Selig has tried so hard to NFLize his sport, but it's a losing battle. Football surpassed baseball in popularity in the 60's and has lapped it many times since then.

[WhiteSox5187]

Originally Posted by TheOldRoman

I wasn't alive in the '70s, so I can't say for sure. Maybe my memories of the '90s are clouded because I was still young. However, baseball coverage (ESPN) took a HUGE turn towards Yankees/Red Sox 24/7 around the turn of the century. In the '90s the Indians were a small market team which had huge national appeal. Of course, we haven't had a small market team come out and dominate a division while winning two pennants and having many superstar players since then, so there is no true comparison. I don't think those Indians would be hyped up as much in this day. Casual fans don't know stars unless they play for their team or a division rival. Who the hell is Joey Votto? Half of baseball fans today probably couldn't tell you because his great play is not highlighted. He's not exactly doing what Griffey did on a small-market Mariners team in the '90s, but he is still doing great in obscurity. Justin Verlander is the best pitcher in baseball, and on national commercials, but I would venture to bet the average casual Rockies or Padres fans couldn't pick him out of a lineup. ESPN spends the entire season telling us that the Yankees and Red Sox are the only teams which matter, then everybody is flummoxed when neither team makes it and the ratings are down.

Another thing is, I think Fox has been terrible for the sport. Their coverage seems reluctant at best. "Well, here ya go. Baseball, I guess. Hey! In the stands there's a guy from one of our soon-to-be-cancelled sitcoms. Uhh, we will have football games on Sunday!" They went from trying to make a half-assed splash with KEWL robotic sounds and crap years ago, to now not even pretending to care. Hell, they don't even have baseball-specific theme music anymore. They use the "hard hitting" Fox NFL music, which is an awkward fit at best. Joe Buck is one of the worst announcers in sports, and he surely doesn't bring excitement to things. He said something along the lings of he doesn't consider baseball interesting, and it shows from his broadcasting. His disdain is apparent. It hate Fox's presentation of baseball. I don't think they have done anything to "grow" the sport. Put the playoffs on a different network. Have the announcers wear tuxedos just to show the world series is a BIG DEAL. Have advertising hyping up the World Series as a huge baseball event, not just part of "Foxtober! Big 12 football, NFL football, and then baseball at night!"

This is an excellent point. I think you have the root of the problem in that ESPN is only interested in promoting the Red Sox (the Nation!) and the Yankees (the Empire!). Additionally Fox keeps treating baseball as though it were football and brands all their sports coverage the same which doesn't appreciate the differences in which the games are played and thus how they should be presented.

[mjmcend]

Originally Posted by amsteel

For the WS the average age of the viewer was over 50 years old. Younger generations don't like baseball as much as NBA, NFL, and possibly NCAA football.

Anyone around my age (late 20s-early 30s) grew up in the age of Micheal Jordan, the 94 MLB strike, and Madden video game football. The only good thing baseball has had all to itself in the last 20 years is the 98 home run chase. And even that turned out to be BS.

This is backed up by the fact that while Game 3 drew more overall viewers, the ND-Oklahoma game outdrew the World Series in the important 18-49 demographic.

http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2012...-for-w-s-game/

[DSpivack]

Originally Posted by tebman

I agree with both statements even though at first glance they would seem to contradict each other. If the sports/entertainment pie is cut into more pieces (and there's no doubt that it has), it wouldn't follow that baseball is collecting record revenues. But both are still true.

Television is what drives this. They figured out some years ago that producing a sports broadcast is cheaper than producing a sitcom or a movie. The ratio of ad revenue to costs is higher for sports, even with the oceans of money Fox and ESPN (owned by Disney) throw around in rights fees. Even is 1981, the Tribune company was so concerned about losing WGN-TV's rights to the Cubs that they bought the team; doing that guaranteed that Channel 9 would have hundreds of hours of economical programming.

The difference now is in scale. Fox and ESPN pay billions in rights fees, and MLB teams have gotten savvy enough to work out their own local deals for radio and TV, some of them owning their own local networks. The moneymaking potential for broadcasters is so great that there's plenty of money for all sports. Hell, there's even a full-time golf channel.

The World Series? It's the final act in the six-month-long MLB TV show. As long as overall revenue is high (and it is), MLB doesn't have any real incentive to promote it to the prominence it held in previous generations. Pete Rozelle and the NFL were 50 years ahead of MLB in understanding how to promote their sport, and it's no coincidence that the Super Bowl is, for all practical purposes, a national holiday.

MLB could still do that but they've got a lot of catching up to do. It makes no sense that the deciding game of the World Series didn't end until 11:00 p.m. on a weeknight. This is MLB's Super Bowl, but they've handed the keys to the Fox network. We're subjected to the too-cool-for-school dronings of Joe Buck and the inanities of Tim McCarver, who spend way too much time promoting other TV shows.

As long as the TV checks have lots of zeros and clear the bank, I don't see much of this changing. I hope I'm wrong.

Typical Tebman. By which I mean, fantastic post which I agree with, and delivers on the issues of it much better than I could have ever put forward.

Originally Posted by SI1020

I would have to disagree with that. The World Series used to be a much bigger deal than it is now. In fact, I'm so old that I remember when it was the biggest deal of all. The games were all played in the day then. Imagine. The first WS game to be played at night was game 4 of the 1971 contest between the Orioles and Pirates. The Pirates spotted the Orioles a 3-0 lead and then stormed back behind the strong performances of relievers Bruce Kison and Dave Giusti, winning 4-3. Gradually more and more games were played at night. The last ever day game was played indoors in Minnesota in 1987. The last outdoor day game was in Detroit in 1984. I think baseball is hurting itself by having no World Series day games. I also think that the season and playoffs are too long, but I doubt that will ever change. Commissioner Selig has tried so hard to NFLize his sport, but it's a losing battle. Football surpassed baseball in popularity in the 60's and has lapped it many times since then.

Football may have surpassed baseball in popular on a relative level, but overall, both sports have much higher attendance (both total and as a % of capacity) than they did then. And, as Tebman said, while baseball may not have the attention of the masses as it did then, there a lot more entertainment options as whole (both within and outside of the sports world) to splinter the attention of the public. Viewing the sport within that lens, I think baseball is doing fine. And as Tebman and others have said, I would tweak it a bit and make the scheduling much better, but I would not make any drastic changes.

[palehozenychicty]

Originally Posted by wassagstdu

The World Series once matched the two "best" teams in baseball, or the best team in each league, as determined by performance over a whole season. Now it matches the two teams that are best "this week." At least one of those teams was often a marginal performer over the entire season but got hot at the right time. Who cares other than the fans of those teams.

Also, by the time you come to the seventh do-or-die series in three weeks, the thrill is gone.

The full season has lost its transcendent importance, and the postseason is just a second season, more disappointing than the first for all but one team and its fans.

That said, who cares as long as baseball remains financially viable and we can "appreciate the game," or whatever the slogan was this year?

If our White Sox can figure it out and get another title before the Cubs, I don't give a damn.

[Milw]

I'm a diehard White Sox fan--I watch 150+ games per year on TV, and attend 10-12 in person. I live and die with the Sox.

I watched exactly zero innings of this year's World Series, and I think I maybe watched 20 innings of the postseason in total. I just didn't care.

I don't know what that says about me or baseball. Maybe nothing. But I gotta think if someone like me, who devotes his entire summer to baseball, doesn't care enough about the World Series to watch any of it, that MLB has some kind of long-term problem on its hands.

[DSpivack]

Originally Posted by Milw

I'm a diehard White Sox fan--I watch 150+ games per year on TV, and attend 10-12 in person. I live and die with the Sox.

I watched exactly zero innings of this year's World Series, and I think I maybe watched 20 innings of the postseason in total. I just didn't care.

I don't know what that says about me or baseball. Maybe nothing. But I gotta think if someone like me, who devotes his entire summer to baseball, doesn't care enough about the World Series to watch any of it, that MLB has some kind of long-term problem on its hands.

Do you watch the NBA Finals, NHL Stanley Cup Final, and the Super Bowl?

[LITTLE NELL]

When I was a kid the WS was something special. All games were in the afternoon and in grammar school the teachers would bring radios to the classroom and we would listen to the games while doing some kind of light schoolwork.
What has happened is there is just too much other things going on right now, cable TV has given you 150-200 other things to watch instead of watching 2 teams you don't even care about.
I have no idea what the answer is but compared to the Super Bowl the WS is a joke and that's coming from a guy who never watches football.

[SI1020]

I'm not going to name names because when you do that you invariably leave people out, but man this is a really good thread. I'm tipping my hat to all of you in cyberspace.

[DumpJerry]

MLB does a pretty decent job at promoting regular season games, but trouble with promoting the World Series.


That can be solved if either the Red Sox or Yankees moved to the NL.


But seriously, look at the contrast with the Super Bowl, one of the best promoted sporting events in America. The NFL gets the media from not only the cities whose teams are in the game involved, but local media from all over the world involved in the run-up to the game. They have specific media days where players and coaches must be available to ALL media, not just their hometown reporters and ESPN. It does not appear that MLB engages in local media for the cities that are not represented in the World Series other than sending out press releases with the game times and starting rotations. With the Super Bowl, we see personal stories in local media about some of the players, including players who are not studs. We don't see much of that about the players on the World Series teams in local media.

Selig and Co. need to seriously examine their media relations department and work on selling the World Series as America's Event nationwide.

[doublem23]

Except the World Series isn't an "event" in the way the Super Bowl is. The Super Bowl is one night, one single game, that everyone can get together and watch together. The World Series is somewhere between 5-9 days long. They're just not comparable. This idea that the World Series needs to be more Super Bowl is preposterous, if anything, baseball's attempst to "footballize" the sport is what's lead to the watering down of the World Series. No amount of PR or marketing BS is going to change that fact. Let football be football. Baseball should concentrate on being the best baseball it can be, not trying to copycat another sport just because that happens to be the way this generation's tastes have been set.

[DumpJerry]

Originally Posted by doublem23

Except the World Series isn't an "event" in the way the Super Bowl is. The Super Bowl is one night, one single game, that everyone can get together and watch together. The World Series is somewhere between 5-9 days long. They're just not comparable. This idea that the World Series needs to be more Super Bowl is preposterous, if anything, baseball's attempst to "footballize" the sport is what's lead to the watering down of the World Series. No amount of PR or marketing BS is going to change that fact. Let football be football. Baseball should concentrate on being the best baseball it can be, not trying to copycat another sport just because that happens to be the way this generation's tastes have been set.

Back in the day, there was a great build up of excitement for the World Series. During the Series itself, because it is 4-7 games long, there was constant drama and excitement after each game. MLB marketing can take advantage of the ongoing drama until the final out of the final game is made. This is something the Super Bowl does not have because it is one and done.

[doublem23]

Originally Posted by DumpJerry

Back in the day, there was a great build up of excitement for the World Series. During the Series itself, because it is 4-7 games long, there was constant drama and excitement after each game. MLB marketing can take advantage of the ongoing drama until the final out of the final game is made. This is something the Super Bowl does not have because it is one and done.

The World Series will never return to it's glory years "back in the day." As has been noted a million times over, there's just too much distraction, too much other entertainment out there available to casual fans. Among sports fans, the World Series is still a very relevant event, and it had great TV ratings for the year 2012. But if you think that we're ever going to go back to the 1960s where 1/3 of the country is going to tune in for a week to watch the 4th best NL team from San Francisco against the 7th best team in the AL from Detroit. That's just a completely unrealistic scenario. It's never going to happen. Deal with it.

And I completely disagree that there's no ongoing drama to the Super Bowl, as it is the culmination of the NFL Play-offs, which by themselves are enough of a cultural event. The Super Bowl is basically a guaranteed Game 7 every single year, a final, do or die, winner take all showdown for the championship. It's the same phenomenon that allows people to care about the NCAA Tournament stacked with schools, teams, players, etc. that they've never heard of. The drama of "one and done" allows casual viewers to tune in and get involved for a few hours one night. Asking casual viewers to tune in 4-7 nights over 5-9 days is just not a realistic. Baseball simply can't replicate that kind of drama, especially not when the series lasts 4 games because one team didn't even bother to show up to play.

The build up to the World Series you remember was mostly due to the fact that it was really the best vs. the best in a showdown. But the diluting of the leagues into divisions and the expansion of the playoffs has ruined that. Nobody who paid attention to baseball this season thinks the Giants or Tigers were really the best representatives of their leagues. They just happened to be the lucky bastards who were in the right spot at the right time. So you have to choose which is better, the artificial excitement and drama that the expanded playoffs and division chases cause (for example, the White Sox-Tigers chase that went down to the last week of the season would have been completely void without the divisional format, as either team would have been out of the playoff hunt by August) or forgoing all that to again make the World Series a truly "best of the best" representative event in which the AL's best plays the NL's best. But that seems to detract a lot more than it adds.

[DumpJerry]

Originally Posted by doublem23

And I completely disagree that there's no ongoing drama to the Super Bowl, as it is the culmination of the NFL Play-offs, which by themselves are enough of a cultural event. The Super Bowl is basically a guaranteed Game 7 every single year, a final, do or die, winner take all showdown for the championship. It's the same phenomenon that allows people to care about the NCAA Tournament stacked with schools, teams, players, etc. that they've never heard of. The drama of "one and done" allows casual viewers to tune in and get involved for a few hours one night. Asking casual viewers to tune in 4-7 nights over 5-9 days is just not a realistic. Baseball simply can't replicate that kind of drama, especially not when the series lasts 4 games because one team didn't even bother to show up to play.

The build up to the World Series you remember was mostly due to the fact that it was really the best vs. the best in a showdown. But the diluting of the leagues into divisions and the expansion of the playoffs has ruined that. Nobody who paid attention to baseball this season thinks the Giants or Tigers were really the best representatives of their leagues. They just happened to be the lucky bastards who were in the right spot at the right time. So you have to choose which is better, the artificial excitement and drama that the expanded playoffs and division chases cause (for example, the White Sox-Tigers chase that went down to the last week of the season would have been completely void without the divisional format, as either team would have been out of the playoff hunt by August) or forgoing all that to again make the World Series a truly "best of the best" representative event in which the AL's best plays the NL's best. But that seems to detract a lot more than it adds.

Your statement about the Super Bowl agrees with what I said about ongoing drama. The NFL markets it. MLB doesn't.

Your comments about the playoff expansion/format echo what I said earlier about having too many teams in the playoffs. While having so many teams in the playoffs is great for September ticket sales and media ratings, it is killing the postseason interest.