The Twins And World Series TV Ratings

by Jon Marthaler on Nov 7, 2011 1:00 PM EST in Events

The Sports Media Watch blog published a list of the TV ratings for every game of the World Series for the last forty years. It's kind of a fascinating look at how baseball - once the king of the hill in terms of TV ratings - has dropped off, in terms of share of the national consciousness. In the 1970s, World Series games were regularly watched by more than 30% of the households in the country that owned a television. In 2011, the best rated-game was Game 7, which drew a 14.1, and Games 1-5 couldn't even crack the 10% mark.

A few tidbits about the Twins - and more specifically, about the 1987 and 1991 World Series:

Game 7 in 1991 was the last World Series game to be watched by more than 30% of households, or by more than 50 million people. With the direction the ratings are moving at the moment, it might be safe to say that there will never be another World Series game that cracks those barriers; the 2011 World Series was watched by an average of less than 5% of people in the 18-49 age bracket.

Here's the top five in ratings over the past three decades:

Game 7, 1986: New York-Boston, 38.9
Game 7, 1982: St. Louis-Milwaukee, 38.2
Game 7, 1987: St. Louis-Minnesota, 32.6
Game 7, 1985: St. Louis-Kansas City, 32.6
Game 7, 1991: Atlanta-Minnesota, 32.2

If you include 1972-1981 in that list, those games would drop down about twenty or thirty places.

There hasn't been a higher-rated Game 6 since the Twins and Braves drew a 25.4 in 1991. In fact, you can say the same about every game of that Series, all of which were seen by more than 20% of American TV viewers except for the first game. Even Game 1, which drew only a 17.6, is the highest-rated Game 1 of the past 21 years.

Just because I know you're wondering: the lowest-rated World Series game of all time was Game 3 in 2008. The Phillies beat the Rays 5-4, and the game drew a 6.1 rating. It was watched by just 9.8 million people, still the only World Series game ever to be watched by less than 10 million viewers.

I suppose this is all part of the great migration of baseball viewership over the past twenty years: local ratings are up, national ratings are in the tank. It's why local TV deals are so much more important than national TV deals; it's why the Rangers got $80 million a year from FSN Southwest even though nationally televised baseball games barely out-draw soccer games for viewership. Baseball has become the opposite of football in the TV game. And maybe that's not a bad thing.

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It's sorta not fair

to compare anything pre-10,000 channel cable/dish packages to today, but even so, that is sorta crazy.

by archie2227 on Nov 7, 2011 1:05 PM EST reply actions

Well 9,989 of those stations are showing infomercials or reruns of 1990's sitcoms.

"Don't take life for granted, because tomorrow isn't promised to any one of us." -Kirby Puckett
#OccupyTwinkieTown

by less cowbell, more 'neau on Nov 7, 2011 1:18 PM EST up reply actions

Yeah, but I don't think Super Bowl ratings have had a similar plummet

The decline of baseball viewership is proof in my mind that this country is getting dumber.

by ColossusOfRhode on Nov 7, 2011 1:31 PM EST up reply actions

I agree on the dumber part...

…and football is weird. They have some anti gravity stuff going on. Pretty much every other type of programming has seen some fall off. What constitutes acceptable ratings for a new show ain’t what it used to be.

by archie2227 on Nov 7, 2011 1:35 PM EST up reply actions

Well, it's a lot of what Jesse said below

There’s only one Super Bowl game and it’s always on a Sunday. People plan Super Bowl parties months in advance, even if they aren’t planning on actually watching the game. It’s harder to throw a World Series party because unless there’s a game 7, you’re never sure if you’re watching the clinching game, which might be on a random Wednesday.

by ColossusOfRhode on Nov 7, 2011 3:13 PM EST up reply actions

I was just about to post something like that

Seriously, Super Bowl ratings are up, and that might be proof that the front office isn’t promoting the game as well on a national basis.

Consider the Super Bowl: It has very little competition except for the Puppy Bowl, and the ads during the game are considered must watch, and that is partially due to the Apple 1984 ad.

Following the 1991 World Series, baseball never had a Game 7 of the Series again before the strike since the 1992 and 1993 World Series ended in Game 6. When baseball came back, the audience wasn’t there because why should we watch greedy multimillionaires play for greedy multi-billionaires. What helped the healing was baseball seeing great home run counts in the late 1990’s and so on. As a result, local promotion became more important than the national game. As a result, there are a ton of new fans that populate Twins blogs such as this one. I honestly don’t think they remember the 1991 World Series or the strike.

I'm a proud fan of the Minnesota Twins and Dallas Cowboys!
"Life is precious and time is a key element. Let’s make every moment count and help those who have a greater need than our own." – Harmon Killebrew
Champagne SuperTolbert Saves the day!!!

by Jessy S on Nov 7, 2011 2:01 PM EST up reply actions

Whoa

Seth is saying the Twins may go up to 4 years $40 mil for Cuddy. And it might not be enough. Crazy

by archie2227 on Nov 7, 2011 1:20 PM EST reply actions

oops meant to post

that one in the other story. Oh well.

by archie2227 on Nov 7, 2011 1:28 PM EST up reply actions

Wow.

That would be a little mistake. It would be the years, not the $/year, that worry me.

If what he says about Cuddyer and his agent, that they’re looking for 4/$52 is accurate, THAT would be a massive mistake in both years and dollars.

by Jesse on Nov 7, 2011 1:35 PM EST up reply actions

To me it's less about more choice now, and more about less choice then.

When you have four network stations to watch, yeah, you’re going to get pretty good ratings. And into the 80s and 90s when things started to expand, there still wasn’t the beadth of coverage there is today. News about “your team” was barely more familiar than news about every other team, because seeing your team play on television was still very much something special.

The baseball landscape has changed. There are too many teams and too many games to promote on any given day, it’s impossible to keep up the kind of hype needed to support the frenzy that the NFL generates. It’s one day a week (plus Mondays, sometimes Thursdays) where everyone plays, and that’s it.

And so with the generation of local affiliates playing the local team, it was natural that the focus became more regionalized. And with the development of sports networks and specialized coverage and blogs, access for baseball lovers is off the charts and they can get all the fix they want…while the general viewing public, once restricted in what was available to them, now can find their own thing to watch…Project Runway, the remake of Hawaii Five-0, The Biggest Loser.

Football has those same distractions, but it’s only one day a week. It’s not on everyday for six months, seven months if you include the post-season, eight and a half months if you include spring training. If sports were movies, the NFL would be an explosion, special effects based summer blockbuster, and MLB would be the slow-moving character-driven film with a climax that would only be satisfying to people who really paid attention.

And in some ways, the NFL is more American. It appeals to the explosion-loving crowd, it’s visceral, it’s an easy distraction one day a week. MLB is more subtle, and it appeals to the scientists and mathematicians in a lot of us…and I don’t need to tell you that what appeals to scientists and mathematicians isn’t always the most popular.

But I’m fine with it all. Baseball won’t die. But it’s also going to have a hard time marketing itself like the NFL does…and MLB shouldn’t market itself like that. They’re not the same.

There. Those are all of my free thought processes on the matter.

by Jesse on Nov 7, 2011 1:52 PM EST reply actions 1 recs

True

But Baseball doesn’t market itself as well as the NFL. The original purpose of the baseball network was to pretty much create a situation where there is regional coverage of every game on a given night. In this case it was Saturday night and MLB wanted an environment similar to fall Sunday afternoons. Plus it is who ESPN chooses to cover on a national basis and it is always Yankees, Red Sox, or Phillies. Oh they cover the Twins alright, but it is just nightly lip service where they will show a Ben Revere play followed by a few runs being scored and then the final out of the game unless there is a walk-off hit. Then they will be talking about how nice Ben Revere would look in a Yankees Uniform.™

by Jessy S on Nov 7, 2011 2:16 PM EST up reply actions

bingo

Baseball has such a bias towards certain teams that it has really hurt their ability to market the sport overall. You still have a lot of local fans who care about it, but once the season is over, they just don’t care. A lot of that is because there’s no reason to care. I really think that this is where competitive balance hurts them the most.

by diehardtwinsfan on Nov 8, 2011 6:58 PM EST up reply actions

Context is everything

I wish I could find the link, but in essence the journalist pointed out that in 2010, the World Series was the 8th highest rated program on TV. He then went on to point out that in 1970, the 8th highest rated program on TV was…the World Series.

by Dale on Nov 7, 2011 1:57 PM EST reply actions

Here is the link, from the Sporting News.

by Dale on Nov 7, 2011 2:02 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs

People used to watch more TV

A random episode of the Beverly Hillbillies in 1964 about an escaped kangaroo from the zoo still shows up on the top 50 highest rated shows of all-time. Its funny seeing it on the list amongst all the Super Bowls and other iconic television events (its in between two installments of Roots).

The “Golden Age” of baseball (1950s) is actually mired by lots of franchise moves because attendances plummeted because of television. People stopped going to games and stayed home to watch Milton Berle.

by DavidRF on Nov 7, 2011 3:22 PM EST up reply actions

Television killed the women's league too

Or at least, it’s one of the things blamed for it. Why go out and watch girls play ball when you can sit at home and see the Cubs on TV?

by ColossusOfRhode on Nov 7, 2011 6:06 PM EST up reply actions

Big contraction in all minor leagues in the 1950s

In 1950, there were over 60 minor leagues. That was cut in half by 1960.

In 1950, the Cardinals had 21 affiliates. The Yankees had 15.

by DavidRF on Nov 7, 2011 11:36 PM EST up reply actions

But that contraction had to happen.

The chances of making it to the majors is about the same then as it is today per team. You just have players that never deserved to be drafted. Under the draft system, most good players are gone after the first few rounds anyway.

by Jessy S on Nov 9, 2011 3:04 AM EST up reply actions

REC'D

The Cubs are a bunch of girls anyway. At least the Twins will get to sweep their asses this coming season.

by Jessy S on Nov 9, 2011 2:54 AM EST up reply actions

You're missing my point

The AAGPBL was set up by P.K. Wrigley in towns that were nominally Cubs territory but too far from Chicago to be considered suburbs (Rockford, IL, South Bend, IN, Racine and Kenosha, WI… and later Ft. Wayne, IN and Grand Rapids, MI). The target audience for the league was Cubs fans… that’s all I was alluding to. I wasn’t calling the Cubs girls.

[And coming from me, calling someone a girl/woman would probably be a compliment anyway.]

by ColossusOfRhode on Nov 9, 2011 12:45 PM EST up reply actions

I blame Joe Buck.

No, seriously. Even FOX-broadcasted games that I’m personally invested in (ie, hoping the Yankees lose) I usually watch with the volume down. If I’m not invested, I don’t watch at all. I can’t stand listening to those idiots.

Hire better commentators, I bet the ratings will go up.

by Robin G on Nov 7, 2011 2:11 PM EST via mobile reply actions

No, they won't

Tim McCarver was the color man for the 1991 World Series, too. And the ratings decline of World Series games was well underway when Jack Buck was the one calling the games with McCarver.

"There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein

by BeefMaster on Nov 7, 2011 4:28 PM EST up reply actions

Last 10 years with a World Series Game 7

2011: St. Louis vs Texas: Game was on a Friday which is hardly a good baseball viewing time.

2002: Angels vs San Francisco: The midsection really didn’t care about the battle for California.

2001: Arizona vs NY Yankees: Game was played on a Sunday night against an NFL Game.

1997: Marlins vs Cleveland: World Series was sloppy and was a battle of top payrolls including one that was gutted following the World Series championship parade.

1991: Minnesota vs Atlanta: Series started out slow in the ratings, but ended as one of the most hotly contested series of recent memory.

1987: Minnesota vs St. Louis: Most experts and viewers were expecting a St. Louis sweep plus game six was played in the afternoon. Still people tuned in to see the upset be completed.

1986: NY Mets vs Boston: Series was made famous by Buckner’s error, but that was game six.

1985: Kansas City vs St. Louis: Another error, this time by an umpire.

1982: St. Louis vs Milwaukee: Edge of your seat kind of series.

1979: Pittsburgh vs Baltimore: America fell in love with the “We are Family” Pirates.

by Jessy S on Nov 7, 2011 5:29 PM EST up reply actions

So Jack Morris killed it.

After watching 1991 Game 7, everybody realized they weren’t ever going to see a better baseball game, and quit watching. All this theorizing about TV and the national appeal of baseball is silly.

by timprov on Nov 7, 2011 6:49 PM EST reply actions

Agreed

Heck, the entire 1991 World Series killed baseball.

Move away, nothing more to see here.

by Jessy S on Nov 7, 2011 7:43 PM EST up reply actions

Fox

Fox sports contributes to the slowing pace of baseball games. Moving the majority of broadcast games into their hands hurts the sport overall.

by Boot on Nov 8, 2011 2:04 PM EST reply actions

That might be true for the postseason

However, most television productions are controlled by the home team and FSN is just the distribution arm.

by Jessy S on Nov 9, 2011 3:09 AM EST up reply actions

All I know is

MLB Network is lightyears better to watch than the NFL or NHL Network and it’s not because I absolutely love baseball. I like the NHL a tad bit less than MLB. With that said, I could literally watch MLB Network all day. I could watch the NHL Network for maybe 2 minutes.

(This post has nothing to do with anything)

by TC Mooch on Nov 10, 2011 7:49 AM EST reply actions