Article: Why Baseball's Fiscal Cliff Is Silly

[PeanutsFromHeaven]

You can view the page at http://twinsdaily.com/content.php?r=1518-Why-the-City-Pages-are-Silly

[Mike Sixel]

Competitiveness is not about who wins the championship.....it is about hope during the season. Stark and others do not seem to get this point. The rest, who knows......

[Willihammer]

(Personal example: the only non-network channels I watch are FSN, ESPN and Comedy Central anyway...so I'm in regardless; my younger brother can't afford cable, but if he could get the sports channels he wanted without paying hundreds of bucks for sports AND SoapNet/E!, he'd do it in a heart beat)

 

Personal example. I don't own a t.v. The price of cable prohibits me getting one, if not the fact that I would also just be watching FSN and Comedy Central 90% of the time and don't like sitting through commercial breaks. But I can get comedy central online for free, without commecial breaks, and mlb.tv, as lousy a product as it is, is still cheap (and no ads obviously - although conceivably that could change). That is to say, I think a lot of the consumers you describe would not buy an individual channel package if its more expensive than mlb.tv. And if cable did somehow make a compelling sales pitch, a lot of those new subscribers will be dropping their mlb.tv subscriptions.

[kab21]

The problem with buying sports as individual channels is that they are the most expensive channels. The prices on the linked chart would be significantly higher if they weren't bundled. I think they say as high as $20 for just ESPN. ESPN, Sports and Your Cable Bill - Peter Kafka - Media - AllThingsD

 

Regarding pt 2 - It's like he went looking for numbers that supported his argument. I think the WS viewership chart is misleading in showing the reduced interest in baseball. In the same period MLB attendance has doubled despite ticket prices that are borderline ridiculous.

 

I'm not sure how the fall out from ARod's contract has affected FA's. The only reason that there weren't any huge contract this offseason was that Greinke was the well above average player in FA and he managed to get 160+M. The M's just signed Felix to the biggest pitching contract ever. The offseason before Pujols and fielder received huge contracts while Votto got a massive extension. There is huge money being spent by clubs and I expect salaries to jump significantly in the next 3-4 years.

[The Wise One]

Do you teach yor students to cherrypick facts and compare apples to oranges?. Comparing blog hits between different sports as way to measure popularity. Never mind that one of the teams has performed well over the last decade while the other has given new meaning to the word futile.

There is no guarentee of a fiscal cliff, there is no guarantee there will not be. When how we view entertainment programs continues to change we shall see what the price will be. To think that cable will go on forever is shortsighted.

[Paul Pleiss]

I have a TV w/ digital bunny ears, local channels in crystal clear HD for free. I don't get ESPN or other cable channels, but I've got MLB.tv, NHL gamecenter and if there's a game on ESPN or another channel I don't get that gives me a great excuse to head down to the local watering hole to watch the game and have some brews. Cable, good riddence. Baseball willl ride out whatever wave follows the crash of cable companies, but that being said, i don't see the fall of cable happening anytime soon.

[Oldgoat_MN]

As far as viewership, I am always amazed that these very wealthy team owners do so little to protect their investment.

From a marketing standpoint, almost all Saturday games should be afternoon games. Far more likely to get children out to the park. How many of us fondly remember being at the ballpark with Dad as an early childhood highlight?

And, of course, Friday's game and Saturday's game are always at the same park. Players would get used to it.

Back to the subject, baseball is far from dying. It is, after all, the finest game on earth.

 

edit: MY memories are sitting in the stands with my Dad. For others it might be both parents or Mom. Don't rip me for being sexist. The most fun women I know are baseball fans

[PeanutsFromHeaven]

Personal example. I don't own a t.v. The price of cable prohibits me getting one, if not the fact that I would also just be watching FSN and Comedy Central 90% of the time and don't like sitting through commercial breaks. But I can get comedy central online for free, without commecial breaks, and mlb.tv, as lousy a product as it is, is still cheap (and no ads obviously - although conceivably that could change). That is to say, I think a lot of the consumers you describe would not buy an individual channel package if its more expensive than mlb.tv. And if cable did somehow make a compelling sales pitch, a lot of those new subscribers will be dropping their mlb.tv subscriptions.

 

Doesn't mlb.tv black out games that are being broadcast within a certain local radius? So if you're in MN and you want to watch the Twins, you still need cable.

[snepp]

Doesn't mlb.tv black out games that are being broadcast within a certain local radius? So if you're in MN and you want to watch the Twins, you still need cable.

 

There are ways around it, but yes, there are obnoxiously archaic blackout restrictions.

[old nurse]

The "if fallacy" mentioned is not an if when the number of cable subscribers are dropping. The reasons for dropping are varied. The world changes. You and the people around you might not change, but the rest of the world does.