By Thalia Bardell, howiGit Contributing Writer, Boston, MA
What’s happening to America’s pastime? People just aren’t watching as much baseball – the numbers don’t lie. An average of 14.3 million viewers tuned in to watch the San Francisco Giants play the Texas Rangers in the 2010 World Series and 106.5 million watched the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts in the Super Bowl that same year. You could bring a number of different arguments to this statistic – Hurricane Katrina and the country’s interest in watching the Saints win it for their city being the most obvious, but the fact is not even a hurricane can account for about 7.5 times more viewers than the World Series. Baseball’s popularity is on the slide.
Take Boston for example; when the Sox won the World Series in ’07 they topped Major League Baseball’s local broadcasting ratings – last year their ratings were half that number. I’ll admit it: Last year the Sox were boring. Of course they didn’t have the ratings of ’07, they finished third in the AL East and the team we ended up watching was the Pawtucket Red Sox featuring Adrien Beltre. Injuries aside the Red Sox just didn’t have the excitement, the “swagger,” if you will, that they’ve had in previous seasons. Last year there was no confidence and no intensity from the guys that we always expect it from. I’m looking at you Josh Beckett and Jonathan Papelbon. What happened to Badass Beckett? I want the guy who yelled at players, umpires, and managers alike, the guy who would throw a punch or drill a guy in the ribs with a fastball and not care – not Boringass Beckett with his bad back and pouty face.
Epstein, I think, gets it — he’s smart (although if you ask Buck Showalter he’ll tell you otherwise – get back to me when you’ve got a ring, bro) and he knows that by signing Gonzalez and Crawford he’s created one of the most anticipated Sox line-ups in a long time. But he’s got competition in both the Celtics and the Bruins and it comes down to this question: Did people just lose interest in last year’s Sox or are people losing interest in baseball as a whole?
We live in a fast-paced, instant gratification, capture your life in 140 characters or less society and baseball doesn’t fit in. There’s no quick up-and-down the court or ice action, nobody’s getting “jacked up,” and there’s no clock ticking away in the corner telling you how long before you’re on to the next thing. Baseball is slow, methodical, and to watch it takes a certain amount of patience. To be honest I think we’re moving away from it as a culture. The number of people who’ve told me that they won’t watch an entire baseball game, they only watch the highlights the next day, saddens me. Is baseball only exciting if you see all the great plays condensed into 5 minutes on the latest edition of Web Gems? I’d say no, because I think a Web Gem is much more gratifying if you’ve waited 2 hours and 8 innings for it instead of just from the top of the hour. The excitement lies in the anticipation of the great play. Baseball invites you to stretch out, take off your shoes, stay awhile; it’s summer where are you going so quickly anyway? In the words of Dustin Pedroia – relax. I like that about baseball. Chill out America, maybe turn off your CrackBerry and try to pay attention to something for longer than 15 minutes – this is our pastime we’re talking about.
I wouldn’t say the Red Sox were boring — they were just injured and not playing their best as a result. Sure, it’s always more interesting when your team is tearing it up, but to say the Sox were intrinsically boring doesn’t seem right by me. I don’t think baseball will be as mainstream as it once was, and sure the NFL will draw more fans/viewers. That said, I’d say baseball is more effective in linking generations and the fans who love it love it on a deeper level. The intricacies of the game go that much deeper.
Interesting comparison. I would submit that many people who watched the Super Bowl cannot tell you anything that happened in the game, but could tell you about all the commercials. Additionally, the SuperBowl is a “one and done” where the World Series is not. I am certain that games 1 and 7 have a higher viewer rating than 2-6. And the fact that the World Series was between 2 small market teams (less important for the Super Bowl) did not help. A better comparison would be to the NBA Finals between San Antonio and Cleveland Cavaliers in 2006-2007. I bet that viewing was sucktacular…even with BronBron there. The main issue is that people are fans of TEAMS and not the sport. Yankee, Dodger, Sox (Red and White), fans will flood the ratings when their teams are in the World Series (how did the 2000 series look?). As for the RedSox games last year, I would never categorize baseball as boring, so agree with howiGit. Then again, BoSox games were just as boring to me last year as they were in 2007. Give NESN over to a real team! Go Nats!
Are the Nats mine as well be called the Gnats — they don’t really do anything except act mildly annoying and they create a little buzz. I think your point on the size of the market is dead on, as is the 1 game versus 7 game argument. The Super Bowl’s ratings will always be higher, but I think the discrepancy is growing.
I think that America’s past time has been passed by. While baseball is a great game and yes can link generations, the American people simply find other sports more enjoyable right now. If you look outside of Boston you would probably see alot of the same.
I agree, and I don’t like it.
Less people may be watching (not sure if thats true… i’d be willing to guess that just because less are watching in this market… doesn’t mean others are too) but most ballparks are seeing more visitors than ever before
Alot of new parks will do that. I don’t have the facts but I would assume the nfl sells out a higher percentage of games then baseball does
I bet you’re right.
The Monopoly factor is killing it, there are teams in cities which shouldn’t have team because they’ve been so bad for so long. Get rid of the monopoly status and you’ll see teams that care, because if they don’t someone else will come along and push them out of the league. Although, the last three months all of the Red Sox were injured. It was interesting to see guys who’ll never again play in the majors, fill in for the starters.
An interesting perspective, from right here in the 617.