2023 World Series- Rangers/Dbacks

[flavum]

Starts Friday night in Texas

[Milkman delivers]

I’m not saying this is going to be a bad series. It may be great for all we know.

But it will definitely get low ratings, and most people will forget about this matchup in a few years.

[South Side Hit Men]

The only thing I will follow is the TV Ratings to see if this series claims the all time lowest TV rating (under 9.785M average viewers).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_television_ratings

Hope MLB has to refund Fox millions of dollars due to failed minimal ad metrics. Making the regular season an 162 exhibition season like the other three pro leagues continues to bite MLB in the ass.

[Quin]

Go Dbacks.

[Southwest Sider]

Having moved to Phoenix 2.5 years ago, it's very easy to cheer on a team like the Dbacks. My old team does not develop players to get them ready for big games like Arizona does. Yin and yang. The white Sox frankly need to be launched into the sun. This world series should be a stark reminder to those fucking morons what could have been. 

Go Dbacks!

[Milkman delivers]

1 hour ago, South Side Hit Men said:

The only thing I will follow is the TV Ratings to see if this series claims the all time lowest TV rating (under 9.785M average viewers).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_television_ratings

Hope MLB has to refund Fox millions of dollars due to failed minimal ad metrics. Making the regular season an 162 exhibition season like the other three pro leagues continues to bite MLB in the ass.

If you go by the average number of viewers, it’s obvious that people just don’t care about baseball anymore. I don’t think the playoff formats make any difference.

[pettie4sox]

@Milkman delivers

Why are you always harping on ratings?  I swear most of the posts I see from you are ripping on the ratings of the world series.

[Balta1701]

The only guy who should truly care about ratings for the MLB playoffs is Phil in accounting, because it's his job to. Literally no one else should care about MLB playoff ratings. 

Go ahead and care about NBA playoff ratings, they matter for the sport a lot. The playoffs are 2 months, that's 25% of the length of the entire season, and TV revenue from that makes up a big percentage of league revenues.

Baseball's playoffs are one month long, so they're 1/6 of the regular season. They are a far lower percentage of total league revenues, they have much less to do with the health of the league overall. They're nice, but they don't determine the health of the league. 

What we see instead - take a look at the Phillies attendance. In 2018, their attendance was down at 2.15 million. It jumped to 2.7 million in 2019 when they signed Harper, but it was down to 2.27 million in 2022. In 2023, their attendance was 3.05 million, an increase of 800,000 tickets in 1 year. That's for making the World Series, not winning it. Our experience with the 2005 White Sox shows that these attendance boosts from winning last for years, you could be talking about 4 or 5 million extra ticket sales for a team from making one world series altogether, that's what the White Sox saw and they fell apart after winning their title. The Phillies will probably draw 3 million+ again next year, and the following year, and even if they have to rebuild, they'll still draw 2.8 million, then 2.7 million, and it will only decline slowly.

On top of just the ticket sales themselves, ratings for the local broadcasts will go up which puts money directly into the pockets of many of these franchises, parking revenues go up, concession sales go up, and ad sales in the park go up. This is where the real money is for baseball, it's in their long regular season. Bringing in smaller markets and putting them in the World Series is VERY GOOD for baseball even if the ratings are low. 

In 2022, Arizona sold 1.6 million tickets, Texas sold 2 million. In 2023 just by being competitive, Arizona sold 1.96 million, Texas sold 2.5 million. I will give you a strong bet that those will go up again for both franchises next year. This is big money for the local markets. Their ad sales rates will go up, their ticket prices will go up, Texas might sell 3 million tickets next year. Furthermore, there are long term benefits. Arizona will be filled with Corbin Carroll jerseys for years. Kids who are 6 years old are going to become fans of the Arizona Diamondbacks and want to get Carroll's autograph. Dallas will start being filled with Garcia jerseys. These benefits will last for years. Ballparks also hold 2 to 2.5 times the number of fans that NBA games hold.

Baseball makes its money on the long regular season. It's why they developed their own streaming platform, which was one of the first sports streaming platforms and which earned them like $3 billion when it was sold. They're even able to do things like the TBS, Fox, and now Apple TV contracts for extra money during the regular season because they have so many games. 

It is a good thing for baseball to have a Boston New York ALCS every now and then, because it's great TV, it gets those markets involved, and it has some crossover effect. But it is also a great thing for baseball to have a lowly rated World Series because the Diamondbacks and the Rangers are in it, or the Phillies and Astros, or the Marlins and Royals. Having these small market teams make the World Series reduces the ratings at the time, but it massively boosts the revenue of the local franchises and it does so in a way that lasts for years and helps create lifelong fans of those teams. 

[kitekrazy]

11 hours ago, Milkman delivers said:

If you go by the average number of viewers, it’s obvious that people just don’t care about baseball anymore. I don’t think the playoff formats make any difference.

Some just don't see that reality.  There are 3 other sports going on.  You also have college games. 

TV contracts and advertising were already paid for. 

There's a lot more to compete when it comes to a person's time for entertainment. 

WS appeals to most baseball fans   I don't care for the NFL so I don't remember the last time a I watched a Super Bowl.  There is a difference between being a fan of a team and a fan of a sport.

I'm sure there will be even eyes glued in AZ since the Cardinals suck. 

 

[kitekrazy]

5 hours ago, pettie4sox said:

@Milkman delivers

Why are you always harping on ratings?  I swear most of the posts I see from you are ripping on the ratings of the world series.

Baseball is not as popular as it use to be was the point. 

Wasn't the 2005 WS suppose to be the lowest rated?

Did that matter to fans of either teams?

 

 

[South Side Hit Men]

 NBA

24 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

The only guy who should truly care about ratings for the MLB playoffs is Phil in accounting, because it's his job to. Literally no one else should care about MLB playoff ratings. 

Go ahead and care about NBA playoff ratings, they matter for the sport a lot. The playoffs are 2 months, that's 25% of the length of the entire season, and TV revenue from that makes up a big percentage of league revenues.

Baseball's playoffs are one month long, so they're 1/6 of the regular season. They are a far lower percentage of total league revenues, they have much less to do with the health of the league overall. They're nice, but they don't determine the health of the league. 

The degraded the 162 game season since 1995 with wild cards, doubled down the past three years, just to sell an extra few games. MLB World Series interest has declined by 2/3 since Jerry bought the team, whereas the other three sports held constant or grew fan interest.

The Bulls finished worse than Getz' record and still drew 96% of capacity and outdrew the White Sox most of Hahn's tenure, despite having equally bad (some would say worse) teams. Were now on a the second generation removed from the Jordan era. MLB also collectively killed interest in the sport by contracting dozens of minor league teams, exacerbating long term growth trends. Won't be any advertising left in a few decades when the medic alert, funeral plot / insurance and nursing home companies flee.

Jerry & Eddie Enter the Chat 1981 Season (1980 Census 226.5M) American Television Ratings:

1. NFL 68.2 M
2. MLB 41.4M
3. 1982 World Cup Final  9.1M
4. NBA - Only two games aired live, the rest on tape delay (Hardly Anybody)
5. NHL - Aired CBC coverage on USA Network (Literally a bit more than nobody)

2022 Season (2020 Census 329.5M) American Television Ratings:

1. NFL 112.2M
2. World Cup Final 25.8M
3. NBA 12.4M
4. MLB 11.8M
5. NHL 4.6M

Now turning local, Jerry pulling the plug on even bare bones minimal White Sox fan outreach has kept attendance at 50% capacity). He furnishes Bulls fan outreach and they continue to sell out, with far higher ticket prices per game.

Chicago Bulls vs. Chicago White Sox Rick Hahn / Chris Getz Era

• 2013 Bulls 45-37 (21,716) White Sox 63-99 (22,105)
• 2014 Bulls 48-34 (21,716) White Sox 73-89 (20,896)
• 2015 Bulls 50-32 (21,343) White Sox 76-86 (21,947)
• 2016 Bulls 42-40 (21,820) White Sox 78-84 (21,828)
• 2017 Bulls 41-41 (21,680) White Sox 67-95 (20,626)
• 2018 Bulls 27-55 (20,776) White Sox 62-100 (20,110)
• 2019 Bulls 22-60 (20,084) White Sox 72-89 (21,442)
• 2021 Bulls 31-41 (18,804) White Sox 93-69 (20,466) - Covid restrictions impacted Bulls more than Sox due to timing
• 2022 Bulls 46-36 (20,881) White Sox 81-81 (24,704)
• 2023 Bulls 40-42 (20,537) White Sox 61-101 (21,405)

 

Sarah Silverman Performs at a 2023 World Series Watch Party

[Balta1701]

24 minutes ago, South Side Hit Men said:

 NBA

The degraded the 162 game season since 1995 with wild cards, doubled down the past three years, just to sell an extra few games. MLB World Series interest has declined by 2/3 since Jerry bought the team, whereas the other three sports held constant or grew fan interest.

This is fundamentally false, or at best misleading in the case of the NBA since you're comparing it to the worst ratings in league history at that time. Going by the same metric you are using, TV ratings, the NBA is down dramatically from its peak. They haven't hit a rating of "10" since the 2019 NBA finals, the last 2 had ratings of 5-6 and a peak of 14 million viewers. In the 1988 NBA finals, the lowest rating was 13.9, and the highest was 21.2. In 1998, buoyed by the presence of Michael Jordan, the final game had a rating of 22.3 and at least 35 million people watching (including me). The ratings for the 2022 NBA finals were just about as low as those of the 1981 NBA finals - on tape delay.

All TV ratings have declined as the media landscape has become more fractured. The 2022 Super Bowl was the lowest rated Super Bowl since 1969, with a rating of 36.9. Since 1970, there have been 3 super bowls with ratings below 40, 2 of them in the past 3 years. 

[Milkman delivers]

1 hour ago, kitekrazy said:

Baseball is not as popular as it use to be was the point. 

Wasn't the 2005 WS suppose to be the lowest rated?

Did that matter to fans of either teams?

 

 

That’s exactly my point.

I’m happy as a pig in s%*# that it’s two of the more obscure teams in the WS. I like to see teams that don’t win it regularly get a chance. I’ll be rooting for the Rangers, but will not be upset if it’s Arizona.

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

The only guy who should truly care about ratings for the MLB playoffs is Phil in accounting, because it's his job to. Literally no one else should care about MLB playoff ratings. 

Go ahead and care about NBA playoff ratings, they matter for the sport a lot. The playoffs are 2 months, that's 25% of the length of the entire season, and TV revenue from that makes up a big percentage of league revenues.

Baseball's playoffs are one month long, so they're 1/6 of the regular season. They are a far lower percentage of total league revenues, they have much less to do with the health of the league overall. They're nice, but they don't determine the health of the league. 

What we see instead - take a look at the Phillies attendance. In 2018, their attendance was down at 2.15 million. It jumped to 2.7 million in 2019 when they signed Harper, but it was down to 2.27 million in 2022. In 2023, their attendance was 3.05 million, an increase of 800,000 tickets in 1 year. That's for making the World Series, not winning it. Our experience with the 2005 White Sox shows that these attendance boosts from winning last for years, you could be talking about 4 or 5 million extra ticket sales for a team from making one world series altogether, that's what the White Sox saw and they fell apart after winning their title. The Phillies will probably draw 3 million+ again next year, and the following year, and even if they have to rebuild, they'll still draw 2.8 million, then 2.7 million, and it will only decline slowly.

On top of just the ticket sales themselves, ratings for the local broadcasts will go up which puts money directly into the pockets of many of these franchises, parking revenues go up, concession sales go up, and ad sales in the park go up. This is where the real money is for baseball, it's in their long regular season. Bringing in smaller markets and putting them in the World Series is VERY GOOD for baseball even if the ratings are low. 

In 2022, Arizona sold 1.6 million tickets, Texas sold 2 million. In 2023 just by being competitive, Arizona sold 1.96 million, Texas sold 2.5 million. I will give you a strong bet that those will go up again for both franchises next year. This is big money for the local markets. Their ad sales rates will go up, their ticket prices will go up, Texas might sell 3 million tickets next year. Furthermore, there are long term benefits. Arizona will be filled with Corbin Carroll jerseys for years. Kids who are 6 years old are going to become fans of the Arizona Diamondbacks and want to get Carroll's autograph. Dallas will start being filled with Garcia jerseys. These benefits will last for years. Ballparks also hold 2 to 2.5 times the number of fans that NBA games hold.

Baseball makes its money on the long regular season. It's why they developed their own streaming platform, which was one of the first sports streaming platforms and which earned them like $3 billion when it was sold. They're even able to do things like the TBS, Fox, and now Apple TV contracts for extra money during the regular season because they have so many games. 

It is a good thing for baseball to have a Boston New York ALCS every now and then, because it's great TV, it gets those markets involved, and it has some crossover effect. But it is also a great thing for baseball to have a lowly rated World Series because the Diamondbacks and the Rangers are in it, or the Phillies and Astros, or the Marlins and Royals. Having these small market teams make the World Series reduces the ratings at the time, but it massively boosts the revenue of the local franchises and it does so in a way that lasts for years and helps create lifelong fans of those teams. 

That’s a good way of looking at it, and something I hadn’t considered.

I am just amused at the idea of the highest MLB executives losing their s%*# that the larger market/fanbase teams aren’t in it. They may not be, as you’ve argued, but it still makes me smile.

[FloydBannister1983]

17 hours ago, Milkman delivers said:

I’m not saying this is going to be a bad series. It may be great for all we know.

But it will definitely get low ratings, and most people will forget about this matchup in a few years.

 

That's ok.  The Score and NBC forgot about 2005 after a few years.

[RibbieRubarb]

20 hours ago, Milkman delivers said:

I’m not saying this is going to be a bad series. It may be great for all we know.

But it will definitely get low ratings, and most people will forget about this matchup in a few 

The Fans of the teams will always remember. Who cares who else does? 

 

Edited October 26, 2023 by RibbieRubarb

[RibbieRubarb]

19 hours ago, Southwest Sider said:

Having moved to Phoenix 2.5 years ago, it's very easy to cheer on a team like the Dbacks. My old team does not develop players to get them ready for big games like Arizona does. Yin and yang. The white Sox frankly need to be launched into the sun. This world series should be a stark reminder to those fucking morons what could have been. 

Go Dbacks!

I moved to Texas. Go Rangers. 😊

[Milkman delivers]

2 hours ago, RibbieRubarb said:

The Fans of the teams will always remember. Who cares who else does? 

 

I don’t care either, just making conversation. I was talking to a friend a few months ago and mentioned about the Mariners being the only team never to appear in a Word Series. He countered with the Rockies. I had to explain to him and even pull up the Wikipedia article to prove it happened. I imagine this one will be similar.

By the way, that one was memorable to me because the Cubs were swept by a team, who were then swept by a team, who were then sweet by a team.

[South Side Hit Men]

8 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

This is fundamentally false, or at best misleading in the case of the NBA since you're comparing it to the worst ratings in league history at that time. Going by the same metric you are using, TV ratings, the NBA is down dramatically from its peak. They haven't hit a rating of "10" since the 2019 NBA finals, the last 2 had ratings of 5-6 and a peak of 14 million viewers. In the 1988 NBA finals, the lowest rating was 13.9, and the highest was 21.2. In 1998, buoyed by the presence of Michael Jordan, the final game had a rating of 22.3 and at least 35 million people watching (including me). The ratings for the 2022 NBA finals were just about as low as those of the 1981 NBA finals - on tape delay.

All TV ratings have declined as the media landscape has become more fractured. The 2022 Super Bowl was the lowest rated Super Bowl since 1969, with a rating of 36.9. Since 1970, there have been 3 super bowls with ratings below 40, 2 of them in the past 3 years. 

TLDR Response:

The bottom line is The MLB is the only team sport in North America which lost total fan championship interest. When I mean lost I mean significantly lost 20 (first Cubs / Red Cubs WS in a century) to 30 million (normal WS) fans interested in watching the World Series leaving 10 or so million left. Whereas all other Professional sports gained millions of fan viewers in their championships over the same period.

Detailed response:

This is not about cherry picking this Jordan year, or this or that BLM boycotted playoff year or other anomalies supporting either of our points.

This is about the fact that for decades the top three American Sports across the general public were Baseball, Boxing and Horse Racing. And they are all on various stages of life support / death in terms of interest of the average American.

MLB had a far superior advantage until Pete Rozelle took charge in the 1960s and began to run rings around these MLB Owner / Commissioner assclowns. 

MLB still had a substantial advantage over all other sports when the  Brooklyn Dodger Fan Sunshine Boys first destroyed fan interest in the White Sox locally, and then MLB as a whole by installing Jerry’s puppet Bud to completely destroy the sport to “kill the union”.

MLB had a 30+ million fan advantage, and they not only pissed it all away, but have been vastly surpassed by the World Cup, have lost any advantage over the NBA, especially by people under 50 or 60, leaving the Canadian sport the last one left MLB is above for general public interest.

MLB was the one North American sport where the regular season mattered. And they passed it away. Pissed away credibility with the only sport where stats matter when they promoted steroid HR races to regain the lost fans after 1994. They cancelled nearly another entire season, tripled the number of playoff teams to let 84 win teams win the World Series, nuked dozens of minor league terms further destroying local fan interest, and will likely be below 10M in fan interest this year and another all time low.

With each and every owner short term motivated change, they lowered American interest further and further to the point where less than 4 in 100 Americans bother watching the World Series. This is Jerry Reinsdorf’s legacy when people look back on the collapse of MLB without drastic changes to the “stewards of the game”. MLB is down to erectile dysfunction, gambling, and Jesus advertisements. Soon it will be funeral plots, Life Alert and nursing homes. 

This is how tobacco and other dying industries operate, maximize profits off a dwindling dying fan base. The NFL, NBA, NHL and Football / Soccer owners are forward thinking. Not the case with our sport.

[Milkman delivers]

9 hours ago, South Side Hit Men said:

TLDR Response:

The bottom line is The MLB is the only team sport in North America which lost total fan championship interest. When I mean lost I mean significantly lost 20 (first Cubs / Red Cubs WS in a century) to 30 million (normal WS) fans interested in watching the World Series leaving 10 or so million left. Whereas all other Professional sports gained millions of fan viewers in their championships over the same period.

Detailed response:

This is not about cherry picking this Jordan year, or this or that BLM boycotted playoff year or other anomalies supporting either of our points.

This is about the fact that for decades the top three American Sports across the general public were Baseball, Boxing and Horse Racing. And they are all on various stages of life support / death in terms of interest of the average American.

MLB had a far superior advantage until Pete Rozelle took charge in the 1960s and began to run rings around these MLB Owner / Commissioner assclowns. 

MLB still had a substantial advantage over all other sports when the  Brooklyn Dodger Fan Sunshine Boys first destroyed fan interest in the White Sox locally, and then MLB as a whole by installing Jerry’s puppet Bud to completely destroy the sport to “kill the union”.

MLB had a 30+ million fan advantage, and they not only pissed it all away, but have been vastly surpassed by the World Cup, have lost any advantage over the NBA, especially by people under 50 or 60, leaving the Canadian sport the last one left MLB is above for general public interest.

MLB was the one North American sport where the regular season mattered. And they passed it away. Pissed away credibility with the only sport where stats matter when they promoted steroid HR races to regain the lost fans after 1994. They cancelled nearly another entire season, tripled the number of playoff teams to let 84 win teams win the World Series, nuked dozens of minor league terms further destroying local fan interest, and will likely be below 10M in fan interest this year and another all time low.

With each and every owner short term motivated change, they lowered American interest further and further to the point where less than 4 in 100 Americans bother watching the World Series. This is Jerry Reinsdorf’s legacy when people look back on the collapse of MLB without drastic changes to the “stewards of the game”. MLB is down to erectile dysfunction, gambling, and Jesus advertisements. Soon it will be funeral plots, Life Alert and nursing homes. 

This is how tobacco and other dying industries operate, maximize profits off a dwindling dying fan base. The NFL, NBA, NHL and Football / Soccer owners are forward thinking. Not the case with our sport.

I’ve heard advertisements for adult diapers on Cubs radio broadcasts. I thought that was odd and had to be embarrassing for the announcer to have to read it.

[pcq]

19 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

This is fundamentally false, or at best misleading in the case of the NBA since you're comparing it to the worst ratings in league history at that time. Going by the same metric you are using, TV ratings, the NBA is down dramatically from its peak. They haven't hit a rating of "10" since the 2019 NBA finals, the last 2 had ratings of 5-6 and a peak of 14 million viewers. In the 1988 NBA finals, the lowest rating was 13.9, and the highest was 21.2. In 1998, buoyed by the presence of Michael Jordan, the final game had a rating of 22.3 and at least 35 million people watching (including me). The ratings for the 2022 NBA finals were just about as low as those of the 1981 NBA finals - on tape delay.

All TV ratings have declined as the media landscape has become more fractured. The 2022 Super Bowl was the lowest rated Super Bowl since 1969, with a rating of 36.9. Since 1970, there have been 3 super bowls with ratings below 40, 2 of them in the past 3 years. 

Yup there are too many choices options and interests. 

[FloydBannister1983]

On 10/24/2023 at 10:50 PM, Milkman delivers said:

I’m not saying this is going to be a bad series. It may be great for all we know.

But it will definitely get low ratings, and most people will forget about this matchup in a few years.

It’s two wild card teams.  I don’t know that that has happened before.  Not very encouraging.

Why play 162 games?  Cut it to 144 if the regular season doesn’t mean much.

[FloydBannister1983]

10 hours ago, Milkman delivers said:

I don’t care either, just making conversation. I was talking to a friend a few months ago and mentioned about the Mariners being the only team never to appear in a Word Series. He countered with the Rockies. I had to explain to him and even pull up the Wikipedia article to prove it happened. I imagine this one will be similar.

By the way, that one was memorable to me because the Cubs were swept by a team, who were then swept by a team, who were then sweet by a team.

That was probably at the height of my Cub hatred and that team was very easy to hate.  I remember those sweeps well.

[Milkman delivers]

4 hours ago, FloydBannister1983 said:

It’s two wild card teams.  I don’t know that that has happened before.  Not very encouraging.

Why play 162 games?  Cut it to 144 if the regular season doesn’t mean much.

2014 World Series (Giants/Royals).

But let’s not act like the Rangers are scrubs. They tied for their division record. The Astros just had the better head-to-head record.

4 hours ago, FloydBannister1983 said:

That was probably at the height of my Cub hatred and that team was very easy to hate.  I remember those sweeps well.

Same.

Edited October 26, 2023 by Milkman delivers

[caulfield12]

On 10/26/2023 at 12:33 AM, Balta1701 said:

The only guy who should truly care about ratings for the MLB playoffs is Phil in accounting, because it's his job to. Literally no one else should care about MLB playoff ratings. 

Go ahead and care about NBA playoff ratings, they matter for the sport a lot. The playoffs are 2 months, that's 25% of the length of the entire season, and TV revenue from that makes up a big percentage of league revenues.

Baseball's playoffs are one month long, so they're 1/6 of the regular season. They are a far lower percentage of total league revenues, they have much less to do with the health of the league overall. They're nice, but they don't determine the health of the league. 

What we see instead - take a look at the Phillies attendance. In 2018, their attendance was down at 2.15 million. It jumped to 2.7 million in 2019 when they signed Harper, but it was down to 2.27 million in 2022. In 2023, their attendance was 3.05 million, an increase of 800,000 tickets in 1 year. That's for making the World Series, not winning it. Our experience with the 2005 White Sox shows that these attendance boosts from winning last for years, you could be talking about 4 or 5 million extra ticket sales for a team from making one world series altogether, that's what the White Sox saw and they fell apart after winning their title. The Phillies will probably draw 3 million+ again next year, and the following year, and even if they have to rebuild, they'll still draw 2.8 million, then 2.7 million, and it will only decline slowly.

On top of just the ticket sales themselves, ratings for the local broadcasts will go up which puts money directly into the pockets of many of these franchises, parking revenues go up, concession sales go up, and ad sales in the park go up. This is where the real money is for baseball, it's in their long regular season. Bringing in smaller markets and putting them in the World Series is VERY GOOD for baseball even if the ratings are low. 

In 2022, Arizona sold 1.6 million tickets, Texas sold 2 million. In 2023 just by being competitive, Arizona sold 1.96 million, Texas sold 2.5 million. I will give you a strong bet that those will go up again for both franchises next year. This is big money for the local markets. Their ad sales rates will go up, their ticket prices will go up, Texas might sell 3 million tickets next year. Furthermore, there are long term benefits. Arizona will be filled with Corbin Carroll jerseys for years. Kids who are 6 years old are going to become fans of the Arizona Diamondbacks and want to get Carroll's autograph. Dallas will start being filled with Garcia jerseys. These benefits will last for years. Ballparks also hold 2 to 2.5 times the number of fans that NBA games hold.

Baseball makes its money on the long regular season. It's why they developed their own streaming platform, which was one of the first sports streaming platforms and which earned them like $3 billion when it was sold. They're even able to do things like the TBS, Fox, and now Apple TV contracts for extra money during the regular season because they have so many games. 

It is a good thing for baseball to have a Boston New York ALCS every now and then, because it's great TV, it gets those markets involved, and it has some crossover effect. But it is also a great thing for baseball to have a lowly rated World Series because the Diamondbacks and the Rangers are in it, or the Phillies and Astros, or the Marlins and Royals. Having these small market teams make the World Series reduces the ratings at the time, but it massively boosts the revenue of the local franchises and it does so in a way that lasts for years and helps create lifelong fans of those teams. 

Not to mention Seager Semien and now Jung and Carter jerseys.

The World Series winning effect was always considered a full five year trailing bump in attendance for winning teams.

At least 2-3 full seasons for the losing teams.

Sox and Royals numbers bear that out quite well post 2005 and post 2014-15...KC fell apart in 16/17 so arguably lost one year as that team quickly broke apart except for Gordon and Salvy.

Edited October 26, 2023 by caulfield12

[nrockway]

On 10/24/2023 at 11:00 PM, South Side Hit Men said:

The only thing I will follow is the TV Ratings to see if this series claims the all time lowest TV rating (under 9.785M average viewers).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_television_ratings

Hope MLB has to refund Fox millions of dollars due to failed minimal ad metrics. Making the regular season an 162 exhibition season like the other three pro leagues continues to bite MLB in the ass.

Don't you think it's fun that underdog teams made it? Did you really want to watch a repeat of the Astros and Phillies? Or to perpetually see the Dodgers and Yankees there? 

btw I tend to think the relevance of TV ratings is declining. I'm 30 and don't have cable, I imagine that's true of most everyone in my age group or younger. I illegally stream games because why wouldn't I? The quality is the same and it's incredibly easy to do. Now my dad does it so he doesn't have to sign up for "roku" hockey and baseball. I still have to look at the TV ads, I just don't factor in for the ratings. 

consider the even younger generation of sport fans who are primarily only interested in watching highlights on TikTok, buying merchandise and gambling. Seems to me that the MLB is doing a better job of capturing new fans with their updated social media policies. Additionally, franchise values continue to soar in every sport despite declining TV ratings across the board. These media rights contracts are obviously a giant source of revenue, but I'll be eyeing the NBA's new deal for the 2025-26 season. The NBA is supposedly expecting the AAV of the deal to increase from $2.7B to $6.8B despite plummeting ratings.