Ratings > Playoffs

Both the NBA and NHL playoffs are starting this week and sports media professionals and amateurs alike are set to make predictions. I figured I might as well too, but first I want to tackle the most important issue that faces every sport come playoff time except football: ratings.

Every playoff features a doomsday scenario, a match up of two teams that won’t hold the general interest of the nation. Die hards of a sport will always care, but the casual fans tunes in for big markets. The problem is the worst in baseball. Here are a list of baseball teams ESPN likes to air during the regular season:

New York Yankees
Boston Red Sox
New York Yankees' opponent
Boston Red Sox's opponent

I admit, I am exaggerating a bit . . . just a bit. TBS is the worst at this actually, ever since they secured the rights to air games on Sunday mornings I swear they’ve shown the Red Sox or Yankees 95% of the time.

This is clearly done for ratings. The NBA is not as bad (they have limits on how many times a team can be nationally televised) and it will find a way to get talented players on the airwaves regardless of market (much like Oklahoma City). Since the NBA is a 5 on 5 sport, it is easier to highlight a great individual than it is in baseball or hockey.  But still, these three sports usually rely on certain teams to pull ratings.

The problem: If these teams aren’t advancing far in the playoffs, the league hemorrhages viewers. Take the World Series last year, a very interesting match up featuring new blood in the Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants. Neither team was anyone’s pre-season pick to reach the World Series, both teams featured marketable stars (Josh Hamilton for the Rangers, Tim Lineccum for the Giants), yet the talk leading up to the World Series was that it might be a ratings disaster. The MLB, a sport dominated by their big East Coast markets, had a worst-case scenario World Series (strictly from a ratings standpoint). The NBA has a similar problem when the Lakers are not in the finals, so much so that many freely subscribe to conspiracy theories that the league is manipulating the games to get them to advance.

Clearly, the leagues rely on these marquee teams a lot. If these leagues keep showing the same, popular teams, this cycle can never be broke. We’ve been inundated with so many Yankees and Red Sox games and talk this past decade that I honestly have no idea how the MLB would survive if they ever had down years. That’s why a salary cap can’t be implemented in baseball. If the Yanks or Sox were forced to restrict spending, the MLB couldn't guarantee they will be good every year and the league has nowhere else to turn.

The best way to brake this model is to show good and interesting teams, regardless of market. A league might lose viewers, but the hope is that these interesting teams would gain enough attention to increase the MLB, NHL and NBA’s stable of marketable teams. The NBA currently does the best job at this, in my opinion, and the MLB the worst.

If I submitted this argument to Colin Cowheard, he would probably say “But youuuuuuuuuuuuuu want to see the Yanks/Sox, yoooouuuuuuuuuuuuu don’t watch if they aren’t on, we are just doing what youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu want”

That’s the same argument that gives us this:

I'm Gary Sinise and my career is in purgatory (aka CSI: [insert city])

And takes away this: