2010 Sports Report
FOX’s regular season ratings for Major League Baseball have been relatively stable over the past five years, but dipped a bit from 2008 to 2009. The fact that there were fewer exciting late season games featuring the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox than previous years undoubtedly contributed to the decline. Also, there were not as many close playoff races, leading to less interest towards the end of the regular season.
On a monthly basis, ratings tend to fluctuate during the baseball season. Ratings are usually strongest in the beginning of the season, and lowest towards the end. In the past few years, September and early October have been lower rated, possibly because sports fans may be watching the start of the college football season (which also airs on Saturdays), or they are waiting until October post-season begins. Close divisional rivalries such as the Yankees/Red Sox often dictate performance towards the end of the season. But in 2009 the Yankees ran away with the division, while the Red Sox settled for the wild card.
On the cable side, there have only been mild ratings fluctuations over the past five years, due partly to the shifting game loads by network.
The last event that had an impact on national ratings was in 1998 when Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa chased and surpassed Roger Maris’ single-season home run record. After that, there simply weren’t many records left that could generate enough interest to have a major affect on national ratings. The 2001 season saw Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs, eclipsing McGwire’s total. But the once thought of as unassailable record of 61 set by Roger Maris (which stood for 37 years), no longer had the same luster, and did not boost ratings on a national basis. Two years later, pitching great Roger Clemens, in what people thought was his last season, got his 300th win and became the third pitcher in history to reach 4,000 strikeouts. While that may have boosted local ratings and attendance when he pitched, it had no effect on national ratings either.
The closing of the original Yankee Stadium was probably biggest milestone of 2008, but other than aforementioned ratings lift seen during the Yankees final home game (and possibly a slight boost for the All-Star Game), ratings were not impacted.
2009 was an uneventful year for major records, but there were some notable stories. Randy Johnson became the 24th pitcher to achieve 300 wins, Ichiro Suzuki became the first player to have at least 200 hits in nine straight seasons, and Chicago White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle had the 17th perfect game in MLB history, and first since 2004. It also began to look like the steroid era was coming to an end as fewer home runs were hit, but Manny Ramirez tested positive for taking a women’s fertility drug often used by steroid users and was suspended 50 games. None of these stories gathered enough lasting interest to have an impact on total ratings.
The 2009 All Star Game showed ratings improvement over the past two years. It also defeated all of its network competition among men and adults 18-49 & 25-54, including America’s Got Talent and Big Brother, two of the best performing summer reality shows.
TBS aired all 2009 Divisional Series games for the third straight year. Ratings were up from last year among American League games, mainly due to the fan favorites New York Yankees reemergence in playoffs after failing to make it the previous year. In the National League, ratings remained stable. Only one of the four series went past the minimum three games, and none went to the decisive fifth game.
FOX and fans were hoping to see the Yankees and Red Sox in the American League Championship Series, but the Sox got swept by the Angels in the Divisional Playoffs. The Yankees/Angels matchup delivered 30 percent higher average men 25-54 ratings over last year. The Phillies encountered the Dodgers in the National League Championship Series for the second straight year. TBS took a dip in ratings, as its series only went five games, instead of the seven games TBS aired last year for the ALCS. The Phillies triumphed once again, returning to the World Series. With a total of only three lower-rated day games, overall ratings were up for the first two rounds of the playoffs.
The World Series had been declining since 2004, when the Boston Red Sox removed the “curse” after not winning a championship since 1918. But in 2009, FOX and MLB got a boost from an exciting matchup dubbed the “Turnpike Series” between the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Phillies. Although the contest was even more geographically concentrated than last year’s (only about 110 miles separate the two cities) the fact that the Phillies were the defending champions, and just a very strong team in general, added to viewer excitement. Having two top-ten markets involved also didn’t hurt. During the Fall Classic, FOX beat all the network primetime competition among key male and adult demos.
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