Bruce P
Do we fire the commish,add more instant replay new play-off system or what?
Answer
There are actually 2 different issues here.
The state of baseball
and The state of Baseball in light of TV viewers/ratings.
Let me start with baseball on TV. As long as people still buy tickets to game, as long as d space is still selling, as long as baseball is still viable, you have to disregard ratings.
A. Ratings are not a mark of quality. The top 3 shows for the week of October 20th (last week) were Dancing with the Stars, CSI, and Dancing with the Stars, the results. Time and time again, reality shows dominate the ratings. This tells us that people either like crappy reality shows or they like to laugh at crappy reality shows. Baseball will never be like Dancing w/Stars or Idol, or Survivor. And that is GOOD.
B. Monday and Wednesday were not on the list because it was last week, but Games 1 and 4 made the top ten list, with a 9.2 and 9.3 rating respectively. The Broncos/Patriots game on ESPN that week, drew a 7. rating.
C. One could argue, that over the course of the season, football overall gets higher ratings. Last week of course was a comparison of a regular NFL game and the WS of baseball. So maybe baseball games get lower ratings over the course of a season. There is nothing wrong with this, it is to be expected. There are 17 weeks of football, and 6 months of baseball. It's just logic.
D. Golf gets higher ratings than hockey. So fast pace vs. slow pace isn't the heart of the matter, otherwise slow pace golf would not beat out fast, even grueling paced, hockey.
now onto...
Baseball itself: I see people in MLB gear everywhere, the Triple A team in my town that I go to all the time set a new all time attendance record (they've been here since 88), people do buy tickets, the baseball players and everyone involved are still getting their money. It's obviously not dying.
Now I do think MLB could do a bit to make it more fan friendly-
1. Food - I don't see a prob. Most places allow you to bring your own food don't they? Or is that just where I am? Places that don't, could do that, because they know people will still be wanting to buy drinks and whatnot. It's like the movies anyway. These places have a lot of expenses. Upping food costs allows them to recoup some.
2. Ticket prices - Now Coors Field has some of the lower prices in the MLB, and some good packages, but I def. agree they (meaning MLB overall) could try to make ticket prices a little better for people in this econ. The above answerer who suggested things like free kids days (heck you know we parents are going to end up buying snacks and drinks for those kiddos so why not certain free kids days? I understand you also can't have like every school in the district come for free those days so maybe there would be x number of free kids per adult ticket, like restaurants do on kids eat free days and have special school packages separately, which they may do i don't know )
3. Add a few more giveaways (of good stuff not like a crappy waterbottle lol) and entertainment things. People love to go on bobblehead days and stuff. People love free and samples and etc. So they will pay for a ticket in order to get a free random item as long is it not lame.
4. Add a few more packages to make it easy for people to buy all in one. Or i understand why they typically have the best cheapest packages on Monday nights, but make a few on Fridays or on afternoons to make it something you take the family to because you are not worried about the late nights, etc.
But all in all, I don't think baseball is "dying". The ratings are nothing to look at. Since the mid-90s only two things in prime time have remained stable and grown in success, over all. Reality TV and Crime Drama. (oh and on cable, Spongebob, seriously, always in the top 10 on cable) And everytime TV gets more and more channels, ratings drop across the board. In the early days of Neilson, there were only a handful of channels so each drew pretty good ratings. Of course baseball rating are not going to be like they were before cable, or in the early days of cable, or even prior to the mid-90s and 2000s when TV exploded with a million different channels.
5. Replay? Eh. Well first off, that would not fix ratings OR what ppl spend on baseball. It's another issue. Though I do think in this modern age, LIMITED replay would be ok. Like, still have umps call balls and strikes. And say something like each team can contest either 2 or 3 calls per game. If they choose to contest, replay will be reviewed and the call made. Now if they contest 3 calls all in the 5th and see a horrid call in the 7th? Well too bad, they cannot even get off the bench to argue. This would cut down on the people going out to argue just to make a point when it clearly won't do any good, and it would put a little more accountability on umps.
whew. sorry its so long :)
There are actually 2 different issues here.
The state of baseball
and The state of Baseball in light of TV viewers/ratings.
Let me start with baseball on TV. As long as people still buy tickets to game, as long as d space is still selling, as long as baseball is still viable, you have to disregard ratings.
A. Ratings are not a mark of quality. The top 3 shows for the week of October 20th (last week) were Dancing with the Stars, CSI, and Dancing with the Stars, the results. Time and time again, reality shows dominate the ratings. This tells us that people either like crappy reality shows or they like to laugh at crappy reality shows. Baseball will never be like Dancing w/Stars or Idol, or Survivor. And that is GOOD.
B. Monday and Wednesday were not on the list because it was last week, but Games 1 and 4 made the top ten list, with a 9.2 and 9.3 rating respectively. The Broncos/Patriots game on ESPN that week, drew a 7. rating.
C. One could argue, that over the course of the season, football overall gets higher ratings. Last week of course was a comparison of a regular NFL game and the WS of baseball. So maybe baseball games get lower ratings over the course of a season. There is nothing wrong with this, it is to be expected. There are 17 weeks of football, and 6 months of baseball. It's just logic.
D. Golf gets higher ratings than hockey. So fast pace vs. slow pace isn't the heart of the matter, otherwise slow pace golf would not beat out fast, even grueling paced, hockey.
now onto...
Baseball itself: I see people in MLB gear everywhere, the Triple A team in my town that I go to all the time set a new all time attendance record (they've been here since 88), people do buy tickets, the baseball players and everyone involved are still getting their money. It's obviously not dying.
Now I do think MLB could do a bit to make it more fan friendly-
1. Food - I don't see a prob. Most places allow you to bring your own food don't they? Or is that just where I am? Places that don't, could do that, because they know people will still be wanting to buy drinks and whatnot. It's like the movies anyway. These places have a lot of expenses. Upping food costs allows them to recoup some.
2. Ticket prices - Now Coors Field has some of the lower prices in the MLB, and some good packages, but I def. agree they (meaning MLB overall) could try to make ticket prices a little better for people in this econ. The above answerer who suggested things like free kids days (heck you know we parents are going to end up buying snacks and drinks for those kiddos so why not certain free kids days? I understand you also can't have like every school in the district come for free those days so maybe there would be x number of free kids per adult ticket, like restaurants do on kids eat free days and have special school packages separately, which they may do i don't know )
3. Add a few more giveaways (of good stuff not like a crappy waterbottle lol) and entertainment things. People love to go on bobblehead days and stuff. People love free and samples and etc. So they will pay for a ticket in order to get a free random item as long is it not lame.
4. Add a few more packages to make it easy for people to buy all in one. Or i understand why they typically have the best cheapest packages on Monday nights, but make a few on Fridays or on afternoons to make it something you take the family to because you are not worried about the late nights, etc.
But all in all, I don't think baseball is "dying". The ratings are nothing to look at. Since the mid-90s only two things in prime time have remained stable and grown in success, over all. Reality TV and Crime Drama. (oh and on cable, Spongebob, seriously, always in the top 10 on cable) And everytime TV gets more and more channels, ratings drop across the board. In the early days of Neilson, there were only a handful of channels so each drew pretty good ratings. Of course baseball rating are not going to be like they were before cable, or in the early days of cable, or even prior to the mid-90s and 2000s when TV exploded with a million different channels.
5. Replay? Eh. Well first off, that would not fix ratings OR what ppl spend on baseball. It's another issue. Though I do think in this modern age, LIMITED replay would be ok. Like, still have umps call balls and strikes. And say something like each team can contest either 2 or 3 calls per game. If they choose to contest, replay will be reviewed and the call made. Now if they contest 3 calls all in the 5th and see a horrid call in the 7th? Well too bad, they cannot even get off the bench to argue. This would cut down on the people going out to argue just to make a point when it clearly won't do any good, and it would put a little more accountability on umps.
whew. sorry its so long :)
does watching spongebob relate to IQ loss?
what?
Answer
Probably. That laugh drives me INSANE. I want to grab a baseball bat and smash the tv whenever that starts up.
..Although it is kind of really funny.
Probably. That laugh drives me INSANE. I want to grab a baseball bat and smash the tv whenever that starts up.
..Although it is kind of really funny.
Powered by Yahoo! Answers
No comments:
Post a Comment