In the hours following what should have been one of the greatest sports moments of my lifetime, I couldn’t help but feel a little empty.
My favorite baseball team, the San Francisco Giants, had just won their first World Series in 56 years, ending a lengthy Bay Area sports championship drought. But for some reason, it didn’t really feel like that significant of an event.
Sure, part of the reason is because I currently live about eight hours north from the epicenter of all things Giants, but there’s more to it than that. A few hours after the final pitch, I was sitting in my room flipping through sports channels to try to continue the historic evening, but found no talk of baseball. FSN Northwest had a not-so-riveting interview series with Manny Pacquiao and his trainer, Freddie Roach, to discuss Pacquiao’s fight against Antonio Margarito. ESPN had an NFL-live type show to wrap up its post-Monday Night Football coverage, and ESPN2 had a feature on 49ers kicker Joe Nedney.
Now, I’m also a Niners fan and love Joe Nedney, but seriously, couldn’t an extra episode of Baseball Tonight be on instead?
Unfortunately, I can’t really blame ESPN for their programming. With each passing year, it seems like America cares less and less about baseball. The five-game World Series averaged only 14.3 million viewers per telecast, down 25 percent from last year’s Phillies/Yankees match up. That barely exceeded the 2008 ratings for the Phillies/Rays Series that averaged 13.6 million, but when you consider that less homes had TVs in 2008, the actual ratings were about the same.
And it’s not like the Giants and Rangers didn’t bring compelling story lines. The Giants, who blew chances to end their World Series drought in 1962, 1989 and, perhaps most famously, 2002, have a huge fan base that extends from Central California, to Idaho, to Southern Nevada. They have one of the game’s most recognizable and beloved players in Tim Lincecum (apologies to Mr. Lincecum about Prop. 19’s failure), and possibly the game’s most charismatic pitcher in Brian Wilson. Don’t believe me? Go to YouTube and search for “Brian Wilson The Machine.” You won’t be sorry.
The Rangers provided just as many reasons to watch. Outfielder Josh Hamilton is an incredible story of human interest and redemption, Cliff Lee might be the best pitcher in baseball and the Rangers hadn’t even been to the World Series in their history.
But the majority of American sports fans didn’t seem to care. In fact, more people watched the Sunday Night Football game between New Orleans and Pittsburgh than the critical game four of the Rangers-Giants series.
I’m not entirely clear why interest in baseball has dropped so precipitously. Football has clearly surpassed baseball as America’s No. 1 sport, and it’s been that way for a while.
Part of football’s allure is that every game, every quarter really does matter. Throw one errant pass and the season could be over. Especially at the college level, one loss can change the fortunes of a program — and that makes each and every game so special and intense.
Baseball, on the other hand, is one out of 162. Lose a game, oh well — the team’s back out there the next day … and the next.
But that doesn’t explain why interest is so low in a best of seven playoff series. I’m not sure what can be done to revitalize interest in baseball — that’s a question Bud Selig and his team of marketing experts will have to address. They can’t introduce fights and violence into the game, which seems to be part of the appeal of hockey, football and the fast-growing sport of MMA. So I’m not sure what it will take to revitalize interest in baseball.
I hope those smarter than me do know. Because it’d be a shame to see the game that I and so many others grew up on fade into irrelevance. And if baseball doesn’t take action soon, there’s no reason why TV ratings and interest won’t continue to wane.
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