GaryMrMets
10-21-2005, 04:15 PM
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/story/357770p-304858c.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/images/columnists/raissman_b.jpg
A Fall Classic?
It's up to Fox
http://www.nydailynews.com/images/editors/header_tuningin.gif
This just in: Not everyone knows the Houston Astros will be in Chicago tomorrow night to face the White Sox in World Series Game No. 1.
Do you smell a ratings disaster?
Whether the odor has reached the nostrils of Fox executives (their network will broadcast its eighth Fall Classic) or commissioner Bud Selig depends on if you believe they believe in miracles.
It also has a lot to do with the suits' ability to promote this matchup. And we're not talking about a bunch of commercials being thrown on the air. To make this thing work, in terms of bust-out ratings, some tender-loving, consistent promotional care is needed.
Right now, by the Foxies' own devices, more of America knows about next month's season premiere of "That '70s Show" than it does about tomorrow's Game No. 1.
"I think Game 1 of this World Series - if you go back three years or four years - will do better (ratings wise) than we did back then," Ed Goren, Fox Sports president, said yesterday. "I think (in terms of ratings) this World Series will hold up extremely well."
No matter how anyone tries spinning, er, analyzing it, MLB's establishment knows the casual fan, the one needed to drive ratings into the promised land, does not see Astros-White Sox as a glamour matchup. So, on a Saturday night in October, many of these valuable viewers may opt for a night on the town rather than a night in front of the tube watching a baseball game.
That would mean the beginning of a ratings descent into the toilet for Fox's World Series presentation.
It doesn't have to - and should not - be that way. The product is sweet. You have the White Sox, a team from the nation's No. 3 TV market (3.4 million TV households), which has not won a World Series in 88 years. And the Astros, coming out of the country's No. 10 TV market (1.9 million TV households), never have been this far.
Two teams come to a World Series playing with legitimate hunger.
That's cool.
Both teams have compelling players. They both have the kind of quality pitching that produces close, dramatic games. Throw in the Wizard of Odd, Ozzie Guillen, for the bizarre - hopefully he generates some controversy - and there are plenty of hooks here.
Not so privately, the suits will admit they would rather have more of a marquee matchup. One that packs a ratings punch. The air went out of some programmers' balloons after the White Sox punctured Boston. And when the Yankees went down to the Angels, boxes of Kleenex likely were passed around the Foxies' Hollywood bunker.
And yet, having at least one marquee team in the World Series does not guarantee ratings success. The Yankees have the dubious distinction of participating in two of the three lowest-rated World Series in the history of televised baseball.
The Bombers' 2000 Subway Series with the Mets averaged a 12.4 rating for the five games. In 2003, Yankees-Marlins averaged a 13.9 rating for six games. The lowest-rated World Series took place in 2002 when the Angels-Giants seven-game Series averaged an 11.9 rating.
Recent World Series matchups void of baseball's glitterati have produced healthy ratings. The six-game 1995 Braves-Indians Series, carried on a split-network basis by ABC and NBC, recorded a 19.5 rating. NBC's 1997 Marlins-Indians seven-game Fall Classic notched a 16.8 rating.
If Fox and MLB suits want Houston-Chicago to approach the healthy 15.8 rating last season's Red Sox-Cardinals Series averaged they'd better roll up their sleeves and, over the course of the next 72 hours, remind America how much juice the 2005 World Series has. Now is the time for some urgency. Commercials are not enough. Fox should mobilize all its assets.
When you turn on Fox News Channel, do you see any World Series panel discussions? And how come MLB does not already have a small army of MLB stars - past and present - promoting the Series matchup on talk radio, early and late-night TV gabfests, MTV and various regional sports networks? Both the NBA and NFL have this strategy down to a science.
MLB is lagging.
This is free advice. It is needed. A wise man once said that when a sports TV rights package stays at one network for too long, the partners get comfortable - fat and lazy, so to speak. Everything is business as usual. Everyone starts believing, and recycling, lines like: "Volume - seven games - will produce good ratings."
That particular line, when applied to that Angels-Giants World Series, is jive.
This Astros-White Sox Series isn't. It is very watchable.
How many of you will?
Originally published on October 21, 2005
http://www.nydailynews.com/images/columnists/raissman_b.jpg
A Fall Classic?
It's up to Fox
http://www.nydailynews.com/images/editors/header_tuningin.gif
This just in: Not everyone knows the Houston Astros will be in Chicago tomorrow night to face the White Sox in World Series Game No. 1.
Do you smell a ratings disaster?
Whether the odor has reached the nostrils of Fox executives (their network will broadcast its eighth Fall Classic) or commissioner Bud Selig depends on if you believe they believe in miracles.
It also has a lot to do with the suits' ability to promote this matchup. And we're not talking about a bunch of commercials being thrown on the air. To make this thing work, in terms of bust-out ratings, some tender-loving, consistent promotional care is needed.
Right now, by the Foxies' own devices, more of America knows about next month's season premiere of "That '70s Show" than it does about tomorrow's Game No. 1.
"I think Game 1 of this World Series - if you go back three years or four years - will do better (ratings wise) than we did back then," Ed Goren, Fox Sports president, said yesterday. "I think (in terms of ratings) this World Series will hold up extremely well."
No matter how anyone tries spinning, er, analyzing it, MLB's establishment knows the casual fan, the one needed to drive ratings into the promised land, does not see Astros-White Sox as a glamour matchup. So, on a Saturday night in October, many of these valuable viewers may opt for a night on the town rather than a night in front of the tube watching a baseball game.
That would mean the beginning of a ratings descent into the toilet for Fox's World Series presentation.
It doesn't have to - and should not - be that way. The product is sweet. You have the White Sox, a team from the nation's No. 3 TV market (3.4 million TV households), which has not won a World Series in 88 years. And the Astros, coming out of the country's No. 10 TV market (1.9 million TV households), never have been this far.
Two teams come to a World Series playing with legitimate hunger.
That's cool.
Both teams have compelling players. They both have the kind of quality pitching that produces close, dramatic games. Throw in the Wizard of Odd, Ozzie Guillen, for the bizarre - hopefully he generates some controversy - and there are plenty of hooks here.
Not so privately, the suits will admit they would rather have more of a marquee matchup. One that packs a ratings punch. The air went out of some programmers' balloons after the White Sox punctured Boston. And when the Yankees went down to the Angels, boxes of Kleenex likely were passed around the Foxies' Hollywood bunker.
And yet, having at least one marquee team in the World Series does not guarantee ratings success. The Yankees have the dubious distinction of participating in two of the three lowest-rated World Series in the history of televised baseball.
The Bombers' 2000 Subway Series with the Mets averaged a 12.4 rating for the five games. In 2003, Yankees-Marlins averaged a 13.9 rating for six games. The lowest-rated World Series took place in 2002 when the Angels-Giants seven-game Series averaged an 11.9 rating.
Recent World Series matchups void of baseball's glitterati have produced healthy ratings. The six-game 1995 Braves-Indians Series, carried on a split-network basis by ABC and NBC, recorded a 19.5 rating. NBC's 1997 Marlins-Indians seven-game Fall Classic notched a 16.8 rating.
If Fox and MLB suits want Houston-Chicago to approach the healthy 15.8 rating last season's Red Sox-Cardinals Series averaged they'd better roll up their sleeves and, over the course of the next 72 hours, remind America how much juice the 2005 World Series has. Now is the time for some urgency. Commercials are not enough. Fox should mobilize all its assets.
When you turn on Fox News Channel, do you see any World Series panel discussions? And how come MLB does not already have a small army of MLB stars - past and present - promoting the Series matchup on talk radio, early and late-night TV gabfests, MTV and various regional sports networks? Both the NBA and NFL have this strategy down to a science.
MLB is lagging.
This is free advice. It is needed. A wise man once said that when a sports TV rights package stays at one network for too long, the partners get comfortable - fat and lazy, so to speak. Everything is business as usual. Everyone starts believing, and recycling, lines like: "Volume - seven games - will produce good ratings."
That particular line, when applied to that Angels-Giants World Series, is jive.
This Astros-White Sox Series isn't. It is very watchable.
How many of you will?
Originally published on October 21, 2005