World Series fails to balance excitement and viewers
Photo by: BostonGlobe.com
By Collin Giuliani // Staff Writer
The Kansas City Royals won the 2015 World Series 4-1 over the New York Mets, winning their first championship since 1985. The series was a great one, as the Royals came back to win games one, four and five of the series. Additionally, two of the five games went into extra innings and game one was tied for the longest game in World Series history, going 14 innings.
Baseball has had trouble in recent years connecting to the younger generation. One of the reasons has been the pacing of the game. “The issue of attracting a younger audience and a pace of game is related,”At Rob Manfred said. This season, the pace of the game improved after the implementation of rules stating that batters must keep one foot in the batter’s box at all times and that managers don’t have to come out of the dugout to challenge a play. While that was a positive change, there’s still a lot more that can be done to connect the sport to the younger generation.
Game one of the World Series ended at 1:18 a.m. That means that many young Mets fans living in New York likely did not stay up to watch the end of the game. When game five of the World Series ended and the Kansas City Royals were celebrating their first championship in 30 years, it was 12:30 a.m. Having 40 percent of the games end past 12:30 a.m. is not how the league gets younger kids interested in the sport.
What is the solution? When a World Series game does not involve a West Coast team, there’s no reason why the games should not start at 7:30 p.m. Moving the start-up time by 45 minutes makes the game much more accessible while, at the same time, not hurting the West Coast market. Additionally, starting weekend games at 6 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. is more than feasible. Game three of the 2010 World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers averaged 11.46 million viewers, according to the Nielsen ratings. That game was held at 7 p.m. on Saturday instead of the usual 8:00 p.m time. There are many other examples of this start time to viewer ratio, as the games played on Saturday of the 2011 and 2012 World Series started one hour later and got lower ratings.
Scheduling the dates of the games has also been a problem for baseball and it was evident this year. According to The Hollywood Reporter, game five of the 2015 World Series averaged 17.2 million viewers, which was the highest rating for a game five since the 2003 World Series. However, there were 23 million viewers watching Sunday Night Football, which aired at the same time as game five, according to the same report. Numerous people likely switched over to the World Series only after the football game concluded.
Baseball was the most popular sport in America for years, but ever since the 1980s, fighting against the NFL has been a lost cause. Since NBC started airing a Sunday Night Football game against the World Series in 2010, football has had higher ratings five out of six times, including the past four seasons. The only exception to the rule was in 2011, when the Sunday Night Football game was a 55-point blowout.
One option for the World Series to fix this problem is to go up against football as little as possible. If the World Series starts on a Friday, then the World Series will only have to go against the NFL once, which would be when game three is played on a Monday night. MLB has gone up against Monday Night Football before and has won in the ratings multiple times. In 2011 and 2013, according to The New York Times, the World Series got a higher rating than the NFL game played on the same day.
While baseball’s waning popularity has been over-exaggerated, there is something to be said about the way in which baseball decides to broadcast its games. Late start times and competing directly against Sunday Night Football has not increased the World Series ratings. Rob Manfred, the commissioner of the league, has already made a few rule changes in his short time as commissioner. Addressing the declining television ratings compared to the start of the 2000s and finding a solution to this problem should be the next step. This World Series, according to Variety, was the most watched in six years. However, there is still work to be done.