Baseball and SOMETHING Else

with the world series in full swing, i decided to make a baseball-related post. i saw this article the other day and wasn't at all surprised that baseball tv ratings have just plummeted.

i used to kinda deny it a bit, but c'mon, an entire baseball game is, well, fuckin boring to be honest with you. even when you go to a game, if you don't go with a group of friends or something, it can really be agonizing. and i say this as having only ever gone to texas rangers games myself, and usually they just suck. but even playoff baseball games that actually matter, watching the entire game is a real chore. commercials between innings, on pitcher changes, injuries, etc; pitchers with slow pacing, games with very little offense, boring matchups.

i've found the best solution is to actually have the baseball game on, but to have something else you're interested in to turn to when the game gets in a lull. for me i usually go with a selection of games on the NHL Center Ice package, or have my laptop at hand when the game's on. i don't know how that would count in a nielsen ratings entry, but i don't really blame the people that just don't bother to watch at all anymore.

you look back at the ratings soaring back in the late 70's early 80's and you can tell people just had a lot less options for what to do with their time. i mean i'm a baseball fan, and if it was 1978 and there was no internet, not a huge selection of channels or choices for sports coverage, of course i'd be watching a world series game. i think that's basically all the ratings say, is that now we've got a lot more options for what to do with our spare time. the same guys that are blowing off a world series game now to play video games online for a few hours were the same ones that would have been watching the game at home 20-something years ago.

and if MLB makes streaming highlights of every game available at the end of every night, what's so bad about tuning into see the highlights of the game? even if you looked at highlights and some in-depth analysis following along with a preview of the next game, that's what, maybe 5 minutes to get you up to speed? if you had something (read: anything) better to do with the 3-4 hours the game took, who can blame you for saving yourself some time and keeping up with baseball in a highly condensed form?

--j