Sports Radio And Baseball - Cart Or The Horse

I listen to quite a bit of Sports Radio. I am partial to Fox Sports Radio because I like Dan Patrick, Colin Cowherd and Doug Gottlieb. My second choice is ESPN and CBS. While I enjoy the banter, the bravado and the discussions on these shows, the content is always the same: The NBA and a sprinkling of the NFL. If MLB is mentioned at all, there is always the "pale in comparison" thought and the "boring" thought and the "not a players' league" thought. Otherwise, something bad must have happened such as an unfortunate foul ball incident. They talk about how their metrics strongly suggest that the NBA is what the audience wants them to talk about. But is this the cart or the horse?

I could type a thousand words on why MLB is not boring nor are the games too long. Suffice it to say that NFL games last the same amount of time and if you break it down, less action actually occurs in a football game than a baseball game. NBA games are generally an hour shorter, except for the last two minutes which take as much time as the first 118. When it comes to revenue, the last figures I saw state that the NFL has about $15 billion in revenue and the MLB has about $9 billion. The NBA has less revenue than both the NFL and MLB.

But this is really not my point in writing this piece. My point is that the idea that listeners do not want to listen to stuff about baseball is driven by the numbers, but what causes the numbers? Let me give you an analogy.

During an economic downturn, the cause can be a myriad of things. The Dot.com bubble bursts or the mortgage giving goes unchecked. The stock market hits a big dip or this is a crisis of some sort such as fuel shortages. Some of those take time to fix but others can bounce back in a heartbeat.

What generally happens is that the news media, always on the lookout for a sensational story, gets all over whatever the crisis happens to be. Once there is constant news scrutiny that a problem has occurred, then the consumer panics and closes ranks on their spending. Doing so deepens the economic crisis, causes unemployment and loss of profits. This is a lot more complicated than I am making it. But, again, suffice it to say that the continued media frenzy adds to the problem and increases the depth of a recession. It is not until the news starts reporting more positive stories such as a jump in GNP or a drop in unemployment that the consumer starts to come out of the shell a little and spends a little money, which in turn fuels a recovery.

I believe that Sports Radio has jumped all over the NBA news party because it has become fashionable and "cooler" than those other "fogies" sports like Baseball, Golf, etc. But you can narrow it down even further. Sports Radio does not talk about ALL of the NBA, they talk about a few teams and a few players. Do you ever hear them talk about the Memphis Grizzlies, the Phoenix Suns or the Charlotte Hornets?

No! They talk about the Lakers, Warriors, Knicks, Nets, Raptors, Kings and Rockets. Listen to them! That's it! And the only reason the Raptors are mentioned is that they won the Championship and are trying to keep Kawhai Leonard. All the talk now is about the big free agents, the top three draft picks ("Zion is overrated!"). When is the last time that Blake Griffin and Kemba Walker have been mentioned on Sports Radio? When?

It is all Lebron and Rivers and Kawhi and a few others ad nauseum. So this isn't even about the NBA. This is about a few teams on the NBA and a few players. Repeat and rehash. Every show. Every day. Every night.

Getting back to my analogy, I think the metrics that Sports Radio hang its hat on are self-created and self-driven. The cart is not in front of the horse. The cart and the horse are the same! They talk about (part) of the NBA because that is what their metrics say fans want to hear. And fans want to hear about (part) of the NBA because that is all they hear.

Now let's talk about Major League Baseball. Is $9 billion in revenue a fluke? Major League Baseball with its MLB.com, MLB.tv and MLB Network and all the merchandise that goes along with it is raking in the money. The owners are fat and happy. The top players make scads of money just like in the NBA. If all I have said so far in this paragraph is true, there is interest in Major League Baseball and that interest is very strong.

The number of sports blogs that cover baseball and baseball teams triple and more the amount of blogs that cover other sports. The NBA has started to talk about metrics now. Kawhi was worth 8 points in that game over average. The MLB has been obsessed with this for YEARS!  Why? Because no other sport garners the same degree of interest in the numbers generated by players like baseball.

My challenge to Sports Radio will never be taken up because they are so comfortable in their zones. I do not see change happening any time soon. But my challenge would be to talk about baseball, Sports Radio. Make it at least a block of discussion in each of your three hours shows. If you do that, I would bet you that your metrics would reflect a change and that people would start wanting you to talk about it.

The one caveat though is that you would have to bring the same sort of excitement you bring to what you cover now. Do not sit there and talk about what baseball has to do to be less boring. Talk about some the cool things happening with the young players and the challenge that is going to happen for the next player-owner agreement to take place because of that emphasis on youth. Instead of vocal sighs when discussing MLB, Colin will need to do just as many WOOOooos! as he does with the Lakers.

Try it, Sports Radio. You won't, but I still dare you to. Maybe then we listeners will not have to see all sides of the Lakers for twenty of every twenty-four hour day. That does get old, folks.

Failure in Sports

Failure once again raised its hairy head in national sports. Both conference championships were decided by the failure of two players. Billy Cundiff yanked a chippy field goal left to end the Baltimore Ravens' season and just a few hours later, Kyle Williams fumbled a second punt--this one in overtime--which allowed the New York Giants to kick the game winning field goal. Ironically, the Giants' winning kick was the same distance as Cundiff's miss.

Failure is the dark side of sports. But failure is also the single element that defines sports. For every team that wins, another loses. On an individual level, the heroics of one man or woman is only possible by the failure of another. The recorded winner of the 500 metres speed skating even was Uwe-Jens Mey. But that race is much more known as the race Dan Jansen fell down just days after his sister had died. Jansen would fall again in the 1000 metres race.

The 1978 playoff game to settle the American League East champion pitted the New York Yankees against the Boston Red Sox on October 2, 1978 in Fenway Park. The game will forever be known for Bucky Dent's improbable three run homer. But everyone knows that pitch was thrown by Mike Torres who gets saddled by history as the failure of that game.

But he wasn't alone. The score was 5-4 heading into the bottom of the ninth. The usually reliable Goose Gossage had already given up two runs to tighten the game to its eventual score. And he was on the ropes again in the ninth. The Red Sox got two men on base but had two out. Hall of Fame player, Carl Yastrzemki came to the plate and could push the Red Sox to the post season with a hit. Yaz had already hit a homer and drove in another run with a single in the game accounting for two of the Red Sox' four runs. For Red Sox fans everywhere, Yaz failed them as he popped weakly to the foul side of third to end the game and the season for his team.

The defining poem of sports,  Casey at the Bat, has its ultimate moment in the failure of Mighty Casey that sent the citizens of Mudville home unhappy. The resonance of the poem for generations was the failure. Yaz became Mighty Casey. Billy Buckner will forever be known for the Mookie Wilson grounder that went through his legs. Mitch Williams blew the save that gave Joe Carter glory and the Toronto Blue Jays their second straight World Series crown. Failure is more poignant than success and is remembered much longer. The most memorable hole of golf ever played will be Jean Van de Velde's 72nd hole in the 1999 British Open. Does anyone remember who actually won that tournament?

In no sport is failure more built into the sport than baseball. The best hitters fail sixty percent of the time. The best teams lose nearly forty percent. The best pitchers ever lost thirty percent of the time or more. And the game is only decided when the last three outs are made. Three failures end every game.

Kyle Williams and Billy Cundiff are to be pitied and not exploited. They aren't the firsts and they won't be the last. Before Cundiff, there was Gary Anderson, Scott Kaeding and of course, Scott Norwood. Yes, they failed. Someone had to do it.

A Word About NFL Ratings Beating the World Series

A lot of people are talking about the regular season NFL games beating the World Series rating head to head on Sunday and Monday night. A syndicated radio program the Fan listens to in the morning called the Bob and Sheri Show (out of North Carolina?) were having a field day with it and saying how boring a World Series it was and who cared. New York fans and blogs were saying that it was because their Yankees weren't in the World Series to draw the attention. To be sure, Boston fans felt the same way. As you have gathered from what the Fan has been hearing for the last couple of days, most of the conversation is far from rational.

So, okay, let's be rational for a minute. Why is it then that MLB can't beat the NFL's ratings even when it is a World Series? Personally, this observer thought the World Series was full of drama, amazing moments, stupendous pitching and breathtakingly clutch performances. The series involved two different teams which added extra interest. Why wouldn't anyone want to watch that? Perhaps the Fan can offer a few hypotheses.

• If it's not mine, I don't want it. The Fan makes books for a living. Seven of the books this Fan have authored involve showcasing the oldest houses in a town and giving a history of the house and its occupants. The books are beautiful, well researched and mostly well received. But often, one of those town's residents will pick up the book, leaf through it briefly and say, "How come my house isn't in there?" "Well," the Fan stammers, "I did mail out questionnaires to all the house prospects and put an ad in the paper looking for nominations." The book flipper will shrug and say he/she didn't see anything. The big finishing line is: "If my house isn't in there, I don't want the book." Don't they have any pride in their town? Don't they find the history of their neighbors' houses to be interesting? Isn't that what the WS ratings show us? "If MY team isn't playing, I don't care." The networks show different college teams every Saturday. They can't always be the home team right? Anyway, that's one reason.
• The Networks and MLB have shot themselves in the foot by insisting on prime time games that start at eight in the east. Those games do not get over until midnight or later. People have to work for a living. They aren't going to stay up that late if the previous reason applies. The Fan can remember people skipping out on work and school to gather around the radio or the black and white television to watch the World Series. Televisions were brought into the schools and we watched in assemblies. None of that is possible with how late the games are. Add to that the added length of advertising in between innings and you have a marathon on your hands.
• The NFL could have been polite and not had any night games the week of the World Series. That would have been a nice gesture. But the NFL isn't nice. Never has been. Plus, if weekend games were played during the day, then you wouldn't have to worry about that. Fox could have put the WS on at 4:00 ET instead of a second football game.
• The constant changing of networks each year and inferior networks winning rights loses continuity, foists lousy announcers on us and puts the games on stations not everyone in the country frequents. TBS actually did a pretty fair job of covering the playoffs, but how many households don't get TBS? How many people would actually think to find a game on TBS? Fox has had the World Series for a while now. The broadcasts are awful. Simply awful. Even a semi-conscious John Madden was better than Tim McCarver.
• The gaining perception that baseball games are long and boring. It's bad enough that the print media says that kind of thing all the time, but when the television announcers focus on it, then the perception gets embedded in people's minds. Yeah, games are longer than they used to be. Put commercial breaks back to a minute and that would help. Take away some of the pomp. That would help. But focus on the fact that for all of the hype about the NFL, those games get pretty darn boring too. Touchdown, extra point, commercial, kickoff, commercial. NFL games needlessly drag on for longer than three hours too. And that doesn't include overtime games. Baseball is a beautiful game. Explain it. Celebrate it. Stop knocking it, Media!
• Lingering doubt about the players due to the PED issues. A lot of people still feel duped and the media has taken delight at tearing those giants that helped bring baseball fans back. Those guys became heroes and brought new fans. Then those fans found out that it nobody liked their heroes anymore. Okay, let's move on to something else.
• The pace of baseball simply doesn't reflect our society anymore. We are the McDonalds, one-hour drama generation. We want instant gratification and instant results. Baseball no longer fits the way we live.
• There is a media bias towards largely hyped teams like the Yankees and others. If the media did a better job of hyping all teams, there wouldn't be such a drop of interest.

Those are the rational reasons this Fan can think of. Have we missed any? Either way, it's sad that the MLB and the World Series can't even out rate a regular season football game. But it's the sport the Fan loves. And it's the only game in town.