Baseball talk on the networks

When I listen to ESPN or NBC national radio, I'm always struck by how little attention baseball gets on the nationwide talk shows. Right now, there is tons more talk about the NBA playoffs; and when the NFL draft happened, both networks wanted to talk about little else. Considering how much local stations talk about baseball (and how strong local ratings are for broadcasts), why don't the national broadcasters talk more baseball?

I think because both the NHL and NBA finals are going on, and MLB is still in the early part of the regular season. Since MLB basically has a monopoly on the talk for June and July, until NFL camp starts in August, hosts may figure that holding back is a way to keep interest.

The regional nature of baseball plays a role too.

It makes a lot of sense for KMOX to talk about the Cardinals, because the Cardinals have a very large following in Saint Louis.
It makes less sense for Fox Sports Radio to talk about the Cardinals, because there's no reason for someone outside StL to care who the Cardinals are putting on the D.L. or which pitcher got blown up by the Rockies.

Baseball has become more and more a regional sport over the last 25 years because IMO, MLB destroyed its national appeal through an endless series of bad TV contracts that began when Peter Ueberroth gave CBS sole rights to baseball for more upfront cash even though CBS reduced the over-the-air network coverage of the game from what it had been. MLB lost sight of the fact that the one time they ever regained near-parity with the NFL was when they had national exposure on two networks (NBC and ABC) from 1976-89 and with CBS doing radio that meant they were just like the NFL in terms of having all three networks invested in the sport. Plus, that also meant greater announcing diversity in the national coverage that you also see in the NFL where the World Series rotated every year just like the Super Bowl does. Since 1990, first with CBS and later with FOX (with one brief interruption when NBC was back in the mix on an alternating basis in the late 90s) we have been forced to see one-note network coverage and being forced to endure Joe Buck doing all the big stuff year after year. The net effect of bad national coverage has made fans who are rabid baseball fans more interested in just watching their own team and thus they are not well-versed on other teams as would have been the case decades ago. In the 1970s-80, the serious baseball fan would have cared who the Cardinals put on the DL even if he didn't live in St. Louis.

That's a thoughtful take. Certainly a weekly nationally televised game on a weeknight helped exposure as well. However, I think there's only so much room for sports interest, and the NFL took up more space, and interest, during the period you reference. Other factors, like the steroid scandal, probably played a role as well.

ESPN has televised 1-2 national baseball games on Monday and Wednesday nights for years. But ratings are quite low. Last week's WNB game, Dodgers vs. Cardinals, was not in the top 25 prime-time cable programs, suggesting 0.75 million viewers or fewer.

To give you some idea of how much MLB benefited from the multi-network approach in the late 70s and 80s, in 1978 NBC actually dumped several NFL games from their schedule so a World Series game could air on Sunday afternoon. CBS even had Pete Rose in the NFL Today studio to forecast the World Series. And in 1986, when a rainout pushed Game 7 of the 1986 World Series to Monday Night opposite Giants-Redskins (two powerhouse NFL teams at the time), the World Series blew out MNF by over 5 to 1. (something like a 38 rating to 8).

The NBC Saturday afternoon Game of the Week combined with a weekly ABC primetime game was the ideal exposure. ESPN offered too much to the point of boredom with lesser announcing caliber than what NBC and ABC had provided and the real crime is that for the last 22 years the two best baseball voices in network sports, Al Michaels and Bob Costas have been shut out of the game because they've been working for the wrong networks (Costas does do a few games for MLB Network but that's very minimal involvement). If people were able to see the World Series rotate year to year among Michaels-Costas-Buck then people wouldn't have gotten so sick of Buck as they largely are now.

epaddon said:

To give you some idea of how much MLB benefited from the multi-network approach in the late 70s and 80s, in 1978 NBC actually dumped several NFL games from their schedule so a World Series game could air on Sunday afternoon. CBS even had Pete Rose in the NFL Today studio to forecast the World Series. And in 1986, when a rainout pushed Game 7 of the 1986 World Series to Monday Night opposite Giants-Redskins (two powerhouse NFL teams at the time), the World Series blew out MNF by over 5 to 1. (something like a 38 rating to 8).

The NBC Saturday afternoon Game of the Week combined with a weekly ABC primetime game was the ideal exposure. ESPN offered too much to the point of boredom with lesser announcing caliber than what NBC and ABC had provided and the real crime is that for the last 22 years the two best baseball voices in network sports, Al Michaels and Bob Costas have been shut out of the game because they've been working for the wrong networks (Costas does do a few games for MLB Network but that's very minimal involvement). If people were able to see the World Series rotate year to year among Michaels-Costas-Buck then people wouldn't have gotten so sick of Buck as they largely are now.

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Could not agree more.

installLSC said:

When I listen to ESPN or NBC national radio, I'm always struck by how little attention baseball gets on the nationwide talk shows. Right now, there is tons more talk about the NBA playoffs; and when the NFL draft happened, both networks wanted to talk about little else. Considering how much local stations talk about baseball (and how strong local ratings are for broadcasts), why don't the national broadcasters talk more baseball?

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This is the reason I have practically ignored national sports talk. I have made it a point to ignore it.

What's so disappointing is there are so many great stories around baseball. The emergence of Aaron Judge, the rise of the Twins, the demise of the Giants, what's wrong with the Cubs, Tim Tebow in the minors, Ryan Zimmerman chasing a triple crown, Andrew McCutchen finding his stroke, the dominance of the Astros, etc.