Before Drayton McLane bought the Houston Astros in 1992, he was already one of the United States’ wealthiest individuals, having made a fortune in the grocery business. He had always been a baseball fan, ever since he was a child and the statistical nature helped him learn how to “multiply and divide.” But his presence, along with that of Houston Rockets’ owner Leslie Alexander, at a Jones Business School forum on sports management Monday at Rice University would never have attracted such an audience if he didn’t own the Astros.
“I remember several years ago, we were going to create a grocery distribution center in Phoenix,” McLane said, “and there were two reporters there and they were bored to tears. Then when we announced that we were buying the Astros, we called a press conference and there were 200 reporters packed in.”And that’s the nature of the beast.
However, the widespread interest of baseball, which once was unquestionably the national pastime of the American people, has dwindled. Television ratings have stumbled almost every year, reaching all-time lows for the 2005 World Series.
And through the first two games in 2006, the numbers appear to have shrunk even more.
Game 1 of the World Series Saturday night between the Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals averaged an 8.0 fast national rating according to Nielsen Media Research, down 16 percent from the record low rating set in last year’s opener between the Houston Astros and the Chicago White Sox. Game 2 was a slight increase from 2005’s Game 2, but it still put the two game average at a 9.8, another record low.
By comparison, the average National Football League regular season game on Sunday afternoon usually reaches in excess of a 12.0 rating.
While baseball may be a “local sport until the playoffs come,” as McLane said, the continually declining postseason ratings may soon make the second part untrue. Unless the Yankees, Red Sox, or Cubs are playing, ratings have fallen nationally since 1994, making the national appeal that was expected during the playoffs seem to be non-existent.
“I wasn’t always around a T.V. during the series and sometimes I was just doing something else,” said Tucker Elliott, a Yankees fan who also claims to be an all-around baseball fan. “But if the Yankees or [Red] Sox were in it, I’d make time.”
Major League Baseball and Fox Broadcasting will try to change the trend, as next season the World Series will start on Tuesday night, thus avoiding a start on Saturday night, which traditionally has the lowest television ratings of the week.
However, the problem travels farther than just television ratings.
Many franchises claim to lose money. Baseball is trying to increase its revenue sharing, which currently is less than 30 percent of all revenue, which mostly is generated from the national television deal with Fox.
Football, on the other hand, shares almost everything equally amongst the 32 franchises, including all media deals, with the exclusion of preseason local contracts.
The lack of revenue sharing has hurt small-market franchises like the Kansas City Royals and Tampa Bay Devil Rays, as they have not been able to generate enough revenue to compete in bidding wars for the top players. In fact, Alex Rodriguez, who has a salary of more than $26 million per year, makes 70 percent more than the entire Florida Marlins roster.
“Baseball is working hard on revenue sharing,” McLane said. “…Over the next couple of years, I think you’re gonna see even the small-market teams being competitive.”
But baseball has been trying for revenue sharing since before McLane bought the Astros, and it still has only a minimal program.
MLB may have been the national pastime 50 years ago, but as television ratings for the World Series fall below those even for a normal NFL regular season game and franchises such as the Royals and Devil Rays continue to accrue long streaks of futility, that title seems more and more distant.
McLane’s Astros may be fine, but MLB on the whole is not.
2 replies on “Continued ratings decline poises problem for baseball”
it’s a little dated but yeah…. i wrote this for class and it was due a few days ago, so bare with the datedness.
Here is the Problem… If you want the World Series to be relivant again, the best idea would be to shorten the regular season, 120 games is more than enough. This way, we can play the series in September, and have it over by the meat of the football season. There should also be less night games. Baseball was meant to be played in the day.
Face it, the American sports world revolves around football, college and pro. Come August, no one cares about baseball, except the hardcore fans.