Posted by MikeT23 on 8/5/2014 7:45:00 PM (view original):
Posted by dahsdebater on 8/4/2014 12:16:00 PM (view original):
Aside from the fact that you happen to be a fan of one of the teams, how can you totally ignore the fact that Yanks/Sox just ISN'T an important matchup this season? Only one of the teams is contending, and even that is a generous assessment. Ironically, I don't think you'd say nearly as much about a Baltimore/Toronto matchup, or a Baltimore/Oakland matchup, or Seattle/Toronto, even though all of those are far more relevant with substantial playoff implications. You think it's good for the future of baseball to try to build up fan bases for the handful of teams with the most money and just say "who cares who's winning, look at these overpaid guys!"? Ignoring the fact that you somehow don't even seem to understand how the network contracts work, the particular game you keep harping on is borderline irrelevant.
Guess you weren't getting the game you wanted when you posted this. All me.
I have MLB.TV; I get any game I want.
You were the one making the brilliant argument that it was MLB's problem that the network contract was designed to achieve a network goal, i.e. attracting maximum viewership to FS1. The only possible solution to this, from MLB's perspective, is to turn down more lucrative contracts designed to generate viewership for networks and instead focus on contracts that are "good for baseball." FOX thought that putting games on FS1 was good for FOX. Most networks think that broadcasting Yankees/Sox, or really any games with either of those teams, is good for viewership as well. They are the biggest teams with the most fans, so they draw the highest ratings. But you can't possibly think that it's good for the future of baseball to heavily broadcast the teams that are already the richest and have the largest followings. It's going to be hard for the league to support itself long-term if revenue-sharing ultimately results in the big teams carrying the small teams, and contraction generally isn't a great solution since it shrinks your local market saturation. So it seems fairly clear to me that it's in the best interest of baseball to broadcast games from smaller-market teams nationally; the most reasonable way to do this, without sacrificing TOO much interest, is to focus on games featuring teams in postseason contention, with an emphasis on smaller-market teams. If you want MLB to hold out for contracts televising games on broadcast networks, surely you want them to hold out for contracts promising some kind of balance in teams featured? They certainly have set up the MLB Network coverage to maximize coverage of small-market teams relative to what's featured on other national baseball broadcasts.
If you want MLB to seek out contracts that are "good for baseball," focus on the long-term health of all the teams, not just the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Cardinals. Right? Or they could just do the logical thing and sign the more lucrative contract that puts the most popular games on FS1.
I hope this is clear enough. I didn't explain anything very thoroughly since you value brevity over clarity.