When have I suggested that something be done about it? You don't care - fine. The people who run the sport and do business in the sport certainly do, and it drives in so many ways the way the sport is actually played, so it's important, whether you care or not. If Fox has to provide give-backs to advertisers because of poor ratings, as I'm sure they will, they'll offer less money in the future than they would have, which will result in less revenue for teams, which will mean lower payrolls than would have happened otherwise, and so on. It could even affect how they treat other sports, such as the NFL. The quality of the ratings doesn't have anything to do with whether anyone knows what you (in particular) watch, or what I watch. This is the essence of statistical sampling - it only takes looking at a small proportion of a population to learn a great deal about an entire population. It is absolute sample size that matters, not size as a proportion of population size, and 25,000 households (the actual size) is a big sample. A way to think about this was described nicely by statistician David Freedman. Suppose you took a drop of liquid from a bottle for a chemical analysis. If the liquid in the bottle is well–mixed, the chemical composition of the drop (i.e., the sample) would reflect quite faithfully the composition of the whole bottle (i.e., the population), and it really wouldn’t matter if the bottle was a test tube or a gallon jug (that is, population size, and therefore sampling rate, doesn't matter). On the other hand, we would expect to learn more from a test tube–sized sample than from a single drop (that is, sample size matters). The networks don't fib about the numbers, since they have nothing to do with how they are produced - they're produced by an independent company, Nielsen Media Research. They are certainly not perfect, but any imperfections have nothing to do with the issue of ratings of the World Series, since we're not talking about small differences here. If the ratings turn out to be low, there is no question that that is what actually happened, even if the precise number is inexact.
Well, they're certainly easily and immediately connected to the profits of MLB or the NFL, as they directly determine the amount of money networks pay to the leagues. More generally, it is not easy to find direct evidence of how commercials cause people to buy a particular product, but there is overwhelming historical evidence that a lack of awareness by consumers of a product will almost always kill it. I think most people believe that advertising works, but there's no question that not advertising doesn't.
It's hard to compare the World Series and the Super Bowl. Regardless of the teams playing everyone but the most militant football haters watch the Super Bowl. It seems to me that the length of the World Series would have more of an impact on the ratings than the teams playing in it. "Casual" fans are not going to sit through the first few games regardless but they would watch a game 6 or 7.
Some valid points from both Jeff and 3rd. The point I was making about connecting to actual profits is more along the lines of saying what is the dollar value of .1 viewer rating? So how much more are they going to get on their contract for a 10.1 compared to a 10 in the World Series? I'd imagine they do try to calculate that but it must be very hard to determine... in other words I'm sure MLB would prefer to see NYY v. Phils series... but how much will they actually lose by seeing Giants v Rangers?? I'm guessing not that much.
Took some heat at the water hole for the NYY gettin bounced, but fuckin' drank away Oilers getting smoked the fuck out. Wait, the NYY aren't the topic of discussion in this shit ass WS thread? Fuck the TEX Range, and fuck IATA's little rainbow dream Giants.
This is the fuckin' WS champs to an educated [drunk as fuk] MLB fuckin crowd: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NF3F29QVGcA[/youtube] And a mothafucka is DRUNK
The Giants may as well build a podium for the trophy now, you just jinxed the Rangers Everything out of SF is saying Sanchez is getting bounced from the first 3 in the rotation. Linceum/Cain/Bummy
I'll be rooting for the Giants for very selfish reasons and it's my own fault. I turned down a job with the Rangers Triple A affiliate in Oklahoma because I didn't wanna move to Oklahoma. Had I taken it I would have been 4 wins away from winning a WS ring that I had abslutely nothing to do with.
Let's start a petition now for the removal of 22 baseball teams and go with my 8-team plan. Ratings will never suffer again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111 That's why I wrote "I understand it to be...". Obviously, I read or heard incorrect information somewhere along the way.
I like it. Rays fans, all 13 of them, haven't suffered enough to see their team in the World Series on a quasi regular basis so the Rangers really should be the AL team, and the Giants haven't won the WS since they left NY, whereas the Phils just won 2 seasons ago. This spreads the wealth, which is good for the sport. Given how hard and thorough the Rangers bitched the Yankees, I say Texas in 6. Yanks were lucky to win a game in that series.
Phillies were a better team than the Yankees. Better hitting and their pitching was top notch. There was no Hughes, their pen was great. The Giants just had better pitching and the best bullpen in the playoffs, as well as timly hitting(Juan Uribe in the 8th? Cmonnnn).
I love this. You would think the fuckn Mets were in the World Series. So I guess they root for any team that isn't the Yankees? Typical.
Perfect. 3 million familys in NY won't be tuned in. Hopefully all of FOX's sponsors pull out. Certainly nobody else outside of SF or TX will have any interest either.
Did you miss the part were a 30-3 Monday night football game out drew an ALCS game? People were not watching with New York in it anyway. If you want to tout number of viewers being important, it helps if they bother to tune in. Game one should be a magical pitching duel, Can't wait.
That's rich coming from one of the top 10 Mets haters at TGG. Now to answer your question... Not quite. Every year since the strike there has been at least one team in the WS that I disliked or still dislike. 93- Phillies 95- Braves 96- Braves, Yankees 97- Marlins 98- Yankees 99- Braves, Yankees 00- Yankees 01- Yankees 02- Giants (Barroid, Dusty Baker version) 03- Marlins, Yankees 04- Cardinals 05- Astros (HGH Yankees version) 06- Cardinals 07- Red Sox (the '04 team was cool, but I've never really liked the Red Sox) 08- Phillies 09- Phillies, Yankees
I'm not a Mets hater. I just find the constant Yankee bashing by Mets fans to be extremely pathetic. It's Mets fans I have a problem with.
That's really what it is with me, too. I used to have a Dave Winfield Yankees poster on my wall from 1987 to either 1993, 1994, or 1995. Either Winfield or Kirby Puckett was my favorite non-Met in the 1980s. I used to watch the Yankees more often than I watched the Mets in the 1980s because, although my parents had cable, we did not get SportsChannel. It wasn't until the Mets started to blow real bad in 1993 that I started to develop a hatred of the Yankees and it was all due to Yankees fans. They started to come out of the woodwork in 1993. It was then safe. The Mets sucked in 1991 and 1992, but it wasn't safe to start poking fun at the Mets and rilin' up their fans until 1993. Had my family in the early 1990s moved to New Mexico, Calfiornia, Texas, or to anywhere else in the country far from NY, I betcha I would not hate the Yankees. If this was only about actual teams, the Braves, Cardinals, Cubs, Marlins, Dodgers, Phillies, and Nationals would be my most hated teams. Unfortunately, though, sometimes a fanbase can be so incredibly annoying or jerky to you that it causes you to develop a hatred for that team even if the team is not a true rival of your favorite team. I feel this way about the Steelers and Cowboys, too.
