An unfortunate trend in recent years has been the declining ratings of post-season play for many major professional sports, most notably, Major League Baseball. The recently concluded World Series’ had the lowest rating in history (St. Louis beat Detroit in 5 games). The NBA and NHL have had similar issues with declining ratings. However, the NFL’s Super Bowl still thrives in the ratings, with half the country watching the game every year.
The NFL’s success boils down to a simple fact: they understand what sells today. They’ve realized that entertainment is what gets viewers to tune in. Where they originally featured local marching bands during halftime, they shifted to’ a night full of celebrity appearances and performances,’ what we’ve now become accustomed to. The brevity of the championship, only one game to decide it all, is also a major advantage.
It is the entertainment, above all else, that generates the NFL’s’ astronomical ratings. People who don’t watch any other game in the season still tune in, and they aren’t even necessarily watching the game.
They’re watching the highly amusing (and expensive) commercials, and they’re watching the celebrity performances before the game and during halftime. This is basically a requirement if you hope to generate high ratings in primetime, as you’ll need non-regular viewers of the sport. They’ll need a reason to watch the game, instead of Lost, or Desperate Housewives, or one of those CSI shows.
Traditionalists won’t want to hear this, but the NBA, NHL, and MLB should probably shorten their series to no more than 5 games, maybe even 3. Today’s audiences don’t want to devote an entire week of viewing to a long series, especially if their team, or a major market’s team, isn’t in it.
The lack of celebrity entertainment doesn’t help much, either. They must also act quickly, as it is only a matter of time before the other networks decide the Series is insignificant, and decide to air new episodes of their regular programming instead of the re-runs they air now during that week. When that happens, all is lost.
The leagues must also straighten up their management. Baseball isn’t being helped by the steroid allegations that plague virtually any ‘good’ player. Furthermore, the ratings haven’t been the same since the 1994 series was lost to a strike. But they have shown recently that they are capable of reaching a labor agreement without a work stoppage.
Labor issues have also affected the NBA and NHL ratings, with the NBA not having reached pre-lockout ratings, and last season’s Stanley Cup ratings, in the first year since the lockout, were even more abysmal than usual.
The one other issue to consider is’ placement of the entertainment’ during a game. Pre-game performances are a must, but more is needed. For the NBA and NHL, the answer is obvious: halftime, or intermission, respectively.
For baseball, however, this is a problem, as the game doesn’t offer any break for a performance. The most you could hope for is to get somebody to sing ‘Take Me Out To the Ballgame’ during the seventh-inning stretch. Creating a break between innings would cause pitchers to tighten up, and this would break the cardinal rule of sports entertainment: you can’t disrupt the flow of the game (much). It’s sad to say, but the World Series may not be commercially suitable for primetime.
One thing is clear, though, for all’ three troubled sports: whatever it is, something must be done if they wish to avoid obscurity.
