Okay, caveat: I am a Cleveland Indians fan. But I’m writing this for everyone who actually cares about a baseball team that is NOT the Yankees or the Red Sox. And, by extension, football fans who don’t care about the Dallas Cowboys, or the New England Patriots, or basketball fans who don’t care about the L.A. Lakers.
To sportswriters: What are you paid to do? Seriously, do you think the point of the World Series is to be a popular TV show? I get SO FUCKING TIRED of hearing “Duh-uh, that matchup will have terrible TV ratings, duh-uh.” It’s the most un-original, cliched observation ever, and even worse, no one who likes baseball for its own sake gives a shit. Championship games/series determine the champion, that’s what they’re for. And hey, if more than two different teams actually get a shot to win every year, it just might make the game as a WHOLE more relevant, right, stupid dickwads?
Other points:
[ul]
[li]The Indians are not “upstarts,” they tied for the best record in the majors. So you can stop acting as if they’re lucky to be here.[/li][li]Small market? Big market? Who cares? You’re a sportswriter, not a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. Shut up about that shit already.[/li][li]Yes, the Red Sox made an amazing comeback from death’s door to win the World Series … THREE YEARS AGO. There’s a reason stuff like that happens about once every two decades. It won’t be happening this time, so you can shut up about THAT, too.[/ul] [/li]Yes, I am aware the writer I link to says the Indians are playing strong, and will probably win the ALCS. I’m just so tired of hearing all the other shit I’ve listed above. I’m more certain than ever sportswriting jobs are reserved for anyone too stupid to write anything original on any other subject.
That’s what hockey fans are saying these days. You need to care about ratings, if you want to avoid having the playoffs on channel 187, right after re-runs of “She’s the Sheriff”.
The only time I ever hear about big-market vs. small-market is when the small market fans are whining about “parity”. As though MLB should be run like tee-ball, ensuring every team gets their chance to with the big game.
Well, there’s this little thing you’re missing. Without TV ratings they get less network coverage, which in turn leads to diminished advertising dollars, which then leads to labor strife. The commentators are undoubtedly told to shill in nonspecific ways for the bigger market teams to keep viewers interested. With regard to the Red Sox-comeback motif, they have to generate some sort of interest in what has been a pretty boring series. Intimating the possibility of a comeback brings the viewers back the next night.
They need big market teams playing in the World Series. Yankee fans, homers that they are, are loyal to a fault and will watch them come hell or high water. Teams that come from the middle of nowhere get decent but transitory followings, like the Rockies this year. But Cleveland is not a big market. If they make it you’ll note how small it really is come ratings time. MLB will know even sooner than that when they try to charge Yankee advertising dollars for a Cleveland-Colorado World Series.
Professional baseball, or professional anything for that matter, is all about the money. That we invest so much time and effort into these children’s games played by mercenary adults is a somewhat interesting commentary about us.
Yes, it should be run that way. The concept of competitive balance is inherent in organizing a league of teams to play professional sports for public entertainment. That’s why sports leagues have drafts, limits on roster size, and (in every sport except baseball) meaningful revenue sharing and salary caps.
Still, unless we’re talking about fixing games, if the big-market teams fail come playoff time, well, we just have to live with it. So the Series will make less money for the advertisers and TV – there’s nothing to be done about it, is there? Except maybe to stop talking about it.
Spare a thought for college football, too. Just yesterday I heard some shit-for-brains on the radio quaking at the thought that South Florida or Boston College (or, horror of horrors, both) would play in the national championship game.
Yeah, that would suck. I’d so much rather see one of the same-old same-old football factories like Ohio State or Oklahoma or Alabama. Because, like, I have the attention span of a turnip and I’m incapable of learning about the players or traditions at a different school.
Yeah, it’s amazing how Michigan kept getting its games covered, even after they were 0-2, and had been alternately beaten by a I-AA team, and then blown out by Oregon. Same with Notre Dame. How many games in a row would, say Louisiana Tech have to WIN before they’d ever show up on Sportscenter? Notre Dame, even at 0-5, still made the broadcast.
Hey, in 1983, people were shocked and dismayed at the thought of those little upstart Miami Hurricanes playing for the national championship. I mean, hell, they couldn’t (and still can’t) even sell out their own home stadium! College football will be fine this season no matter who plays for the championship.
Lucky you, by May the Cincinnati Reds usually ensconced in their comfortable position, 3 games out of last place, where they remain until the season ends. They sometimes rise to four or five out of last, or fall to within a game or two, but there’s very little drama.
On the bright side, when you call the ballpark to find out what time the game starts, they say “When can you get here?”
Popularity in its own right has become an interest of journalists. Watch the morning news any Monday. They’ll tell you how many millions of dollars all the current movies made at the box office over the weekend. It would make sense as a business story, for people invested in the movie industry or a particular studio, but they cover it as entertainment. Why? Just because a movie is popular doesn’t mean it’s good, doesn’t make me any more likely to see it. I think the studios gather the statistics so they’ll get publicity, and the news organizations cover it because the can talk about it like a horse race, with winners, losers, and surprises. I can’t think of any reason why most of us should care.
But if movie grosses are entertainment news, then TV ratings are fair game for the sports reporters.
I’m not that upset about the small market/large market comments. (I’m not upset about any of this stuff, actually, since it is just sports). However, I am amused by the really silly stuff that sports announcers say as though they had a clue.
Yesterday NPR ran a bit on the Rockies and their amazing run. So they go to some SI buffoon who talks as though he actually knows anything. Fine. The Rockies have been good and can use the hype. However, when the SI twit started talking about the rest of the playoffs, he finished his entire spiel without mentioning the Indians once, while spending a paragraph or two addressing how the Rockies would need to play to handle the Bosox. It was just silly.
A-men. Just about every single team in the NFL has a national following, and some of them have huge ones far disproportionate to their city market share. The Steelers and Packers particularly come to mind here.
