"Baseball is fine. Don't worry about it" Topic

It doesn't have to be "wielding a hammer", it just has to be about making the overall package worth bidding on - and the viewership standard for success for a primetime Saturday event on FOX isn't exactly that high. Regardless of the all the internal machinations of why it happened, the fact of the matter is that FOX didn't have a good cable home for UFC in 2011 when it made the deal (it started on FX and then got dumped to Fuel) and it can't change the terms of the deal unilaterally now that it does.  It signed a deal for 4 broadcast events a year and a bunch of cable programming, and that's what it has to deliver.
8/4/2014 4:02 PM

FWIW, I'm sure baseball will continue to do just fine with broadcast revenue.   MLB and the NBA provide something that other sports don't.  A game every night for 6 months.   With ESPN's half dozen channels, NBCSP and FS1 all needing live events, that's a big carrot.    But it doesn't mean people are watching. 

8/4/2014 4:05 PM
Baseball appeals to "old white guy".   That's fine until they start dying out. 
8/4/2014 4:18 PM
Well, revenue drops would trail behind major interest drops due to the nature of broadcast rights contracts, but if networks pay a ton of money to fill slots with stuff people aren't watching, eventually they go under.

I don't think baseball is any kind of a boom period right now, but I see the deals teams like the Dodgers, Phillies, Rangers, etc are getting for their local TV rights in the last couple years and I have to think these cable companies believe people are watching.  I also see league-wide attendance in the vicinity of historic highs, and so the only thing that seems to be suffering right now are the national broadcasts, and I chalk most of that up to the saturation of market with national broadcasts over the last decade or so, and the general downward trend in TV ratings overall.  
8/4/2014 4:24 PM

I imagine, locally, most teams are just fine.   If you live in KC, you probably want to watch the Royals.   If you live in North Dakota or Idaho, you don't have a "home" team that you've followed all your life so you don't care because you've got more options.  Baseball moves slow in a fast moving world that's moving faster all the time.  I don't really think there's anything that can be done to speed it up without changing the intergrity of the game.    Which is why I suggested streamlining the parts of the game that you can.  Like the HOF.

8/4/2014 5:34 PM
Because if there's anything that will spark interest in potential fans who think the actual game of baseball is too slow, it's minor changes to a museum in a tiny town in upstate NY.

miket23 - bad solutions to nonexistent problems since 1960.
8/4/2014 5:58 PM
Why am I not shocked that Mike doesn't understand the concept of marketing a new channel?

The same thing happened up here a few years back when Rogers debuted Sportsnet One. They own the Jays and they own Sportsnet - they put half the games on Sportsnet and half on Sporstnet One (with fewer viewers). Why? Because every cable package already included Sportsnet and they wanted people to buy their new channel. I hardly think it's because people in Ontario preferred to watch poker on Sportsnet over Jays games.
8/4/2014 6:34 PM
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Wait,
Most of you guys don't think baseball is losing its hold on American audiences?
8/4/2014 7:25 PM
Posted by cobra on 8/4/2014 7:25:00 PM (view original):
Wait,
Most of you guys don't think baseball is losing its hold on American audiences?
Relative 1950. Sure. Less people, as a percentage, care about baseball. But there are still more baseball fans today than there were 50 years ago. It's fine.
8/4/2014 7:45 PM




Baseball is fine.  Now quit talking about it!!!!
8/4/2014 8:13 PM
Posted by bad_luck on 8/4/2014 7:46:00 PM (view original):
Posted by cobra on 8/4/2014 7:25:00 PM (view original):
Wait,
Most of you guys don't think baseball is losing its hold on American audiences?
Relative 1950. Sure. Less people, as a percentage, care about baseball. But there are still more baseball fans today than there were 50 years ago. It's fine.
Losing market share of public interest is "fine"?

Did you learn this in your Business 101 course at Retardville U?
8/4/2014 8:18 PM

LOL.   Marketshare, smarketshare, baseball is fine.

8/4/2014 8:22 PM
BTW. Yanks on ESPN right now.   dahs thinks I programmed it. 
8/4/2014 8:26 PM
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"Baseball is fine. Don't worry about it" Topic

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