If local baseball TV ratings are so strong, why are World Series, All-Star Game numbe

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http://awfulannouncing.com/2014/if-l...rs-so-low.html

The issue about lagging national numbers is easy to answer. Again it deals with splintered ratings due to so many national games being available on so many different platforms. We’re a long way from the days of Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek on NBC Game of the Week on Saturday afternoons as the only national game on the menu. Does anyone even know where to find the Fox Saturday game anymore?

The more relevant ratings are for the All-Star Game and the post-season. If baseball is generating so much interest on the local level, it logically would follow that there should be more viewers tuning in to the games on the sport’s biggest stage, right?

Nope.

Baseball hasn’t pulled a double-digit rating for the All-Star Game since 2001, and hasn’t even delivered a 7 since 2010.

Meanwhile, the World Series, the crown jewel, has averaged in the double-digits only once since 2009. Last year, Boston’s six-game victory over St. Louis only averaged an 8.9 rating on Fox. More was expected in a Series featuring two of the game’s most marketable teams.

You can’t blame splintered ratings in primetime, because these are recent trends for the World Series and All-Star Games. Meanwhile, the drop-off hasn’t been as dramatic in marquee events in other sports.

Now you could spin ratings information many different ways. While some might see the local ratings as positive news for baseball, thrown in the context of the sagging All-Star Game and World Series, it begs another question: Has baseball become a provincial game for fans?

In other words, fans are interested in the home team, but not so much in national stories. Once your Favorite 9 fades out of the race, you turn your attention elsewhere.

You certainly can come to that conclusion based on local and national ratings. It has to be a concern for baseball’s various network partners who have committed billions in the current deals to broadcasting national games. To maximize their investments, they need to find a way to increase ratings for baseball’s biggest games.

It’s great to see teams like Detroit and St. Louis are doing big ratings for games on their outlets and that Pittsburgh fans are watching in big numbers with the Pirates relevant again. But those are snapshots, not the complete picture.

The fact is: The game does move too slowly, and it is losing fans, young and old.