General Sports Talk

Continuing on the amazing Josh Allen…. Monday night he outran Hall of Famer Dan Marino’s CAREER total rushing yards. And it’s not really close. 121-87. That’s 87 in 242 games.

It’s a ‘one play’ league. Stupid Jayden Daniels had a similar game to Josh Allen, running for over 100 yds and getting his team in position for game winning field goal. If it wasn’t for his ‘stupidest play ever’ moment, he’d be all the talk of ‘amazing return’ after his elbow was pointing the wrong way.

The World Series is almost set, and it looks like it will be the owners' nightmare. The Brewers were 21st in payroll and come from a small market. The two AL teams still competing are 28th and 29th in payroll, and both are considered small-market clubs.
The owners hoped for a Dodgers-Yankees series to convince everyone that small-market teams can't compete without a salary cap.
The ratings will be interesting.

Quote: billryan

The World Series is almost set, and it looks like it will be the owners' nightmare. The Brewers were 21st in payroll and come from a small market. The two AL teams still competing are 28th and 29th in payroll, and both are considered small-market clubs.
The owners hoped for a Dodgers-Yankees series to convince everyone that small-market teams can't compete without a salary cap.
The ratings will be interesting.
link to original post

For many reasons, MLB is likely facing future television contracts with less money. It's a declining sport and negotiations with TV networks are about to begin. Bad timing for a "Who Cares?" World Series.

And remember, baseball players who sign contracts for over $200 million are not an oppressed labor force.

Quote: gordonm888

Quote: billryan

The World Series is almost set, and it looks like it will be the owners' nightmare. The Brewers were 21st in payroll and come from a small market. The two AL teams still competing are 28th and 29th in payroll, and both are considered small-market clubs.
The owners hoped for a Dodgers-Yankees series to convince everyone that small-market teams can't compete without a salary cap.
The ratings will be interesting.
link to original post

For many reasons, MLB is likely facing future television contracts with less money. It's a declining sport and negotiations with TV networks are about to begin. Bad timing for a "Who Cares?" World Series.

And remember, baseball players who sign contracts for over $200 million are not an oppressed labor force.
link to original post

The owners are in a very sticky situation. They have worked hard to reclaim all television rights after the 2028 season, but a prolonged work shortage will kick in for the 2029 season. Any season with fewer than 110 regular-season games extends the networks' deals another year.
Regional sports networks worked well in the territory days, but it is well past time baseball embraced the streaming era and recognized that people in Kansas City would rather see a good ballgame than the Royals, and that someone in NYC might enjoy seeing the Cardinals play the Mariners.
MLB games are the #1 draw in almost every local market. They dominate the competition in most markets but have always been content to let local stations, and now regional networks, balkanize the overall market.

Quote: billryan

Quote: gordonm888

Quote: billryan

The World Series is almost set, and it looks like it will be the owners' nightmare. The Brewers were 21st in payroll and come from a small market. The two AL teams still competing are 28th and 29th in payroll, and both are considered small-market clubs.
The owners hoped for a Dodgers-Yankees series to convince everyone that small-market teams can't compete without a salary cap.
The ratings will be interesting.
link to original post

For many reasons, MLB is likely facing future television contracts with less money. It's a declining sport and negotiations with TV networks are about to begin. Bad timing for a "Who Cares?" World Series.

And remember, baseball players who sign contracts for over $200 million are not an oppressed labor force.
link to original post

The owners are in a very sticky situation. They have worked hard to reclaim all television rights after the 2028 season, but a prolonged work shortage will kick in for the 2029 season. Any season with fewer than 110 regular-season games extends the networks' deals another year.
Regional sports networks worked well in the territory days, but it is well past time baseball embraced the streaming era and recognized that people in Kansas City would rather see a good ballgame than the Royals, and that someone in NYC might enjoy seeing the Cardinals play the Mariners.
MLB games are the #1 draw in almost every local market. They dominate the competition in most markets but have always been content to let local stations, and now regional networks, balkanize the overall market.
link to original post

I’m not so sure. I’m a big sports fan, and grew up a huge Mets fan. A ‘good’ Rays-Padres game I don’t think draws eyeballs nationwide. While in my youth, I’d watch a ‘bad’ Mets-Phillies game. MLB might want to be like the NFL or NBA, but it’s not. And with the general increase in pitching skill, and decrease in offense, I don’t see the general public clamoring for more baseball.

I am for hard salary caps for all the major sports leagues, but as you pointed out, this year’s results will make it a very hard sell for the players to accept.

I'm not sure either, but it is the direction Rob Manfred is going. He thinks a nationally broadcast Padres-Rays game in an exclusive window will produce very solid numbers. Peacock has done well with its exclusive Sunday night games and Manfred thinks three exclusive games a week- Thursday night, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday night will be an attractive package.
If the only game a baseball fan can watch on a Thursday night is the Padres-Rays, Manfred is betting he can get five million people to watch it. I've no idea if they will, but studies suggest they will.
In the 1960s, CBS agreed with the NFL to hold near-exclusive broadcast rights to its games. Incredibly, the network actually owned the Yankees, who were coming off a 25-year run no other sports franchise could match, and they chose to sell the local broadcast rights to WPIX even though Yankee games often drew larger audiences than the show CBS aired against them in NY. At the time, people thought baseball and sports in general didn't reach the "right" audience for the Tiffany Network's advertisers.

Quote: billryan

Quote: gordonm888

Quote: billryan

The World Series is almost set, and it looks like it will be the owners' nightmare. The Brewers were 21st in payroll and come from a small market. The two AL teams still competing are 28th and 29th in payroll, and both are considered small-market clubs.
The owners hoped for a Dodgers-Yankees series to convince everyone that small-market teams can't compete without a salary cap.
The ratings will be interesting.
link to original post

For many reasons, MLB is likely facing future television contracts with less money. It's a declining sport and negotiations with TV networks are about to begin. Bad timing for a "Who Cares?" World Series.

And remember, baseball players who sign contracts for over $200 million are not an oppressed labor force.
link to original post

The owners are in a very sticky situation. They have worked hard to reclaim all television rights after the 2028 season, but a prolonged work shortage will kick in for the 2029 season. Any season with fewer than 110 regular-season games extends the networks' deals another year.
Regional sports networks worked well in the territory days, but it is well past time baseball embraced the streaming era and recognized that people in Kansas City would rather see a good ballgame than the Royals, and that someone in NYC might enjoy seeing the Cardinals play the Mariners.
MLB games are the #1 draw in almost every local market. They dominate the competition in most markets but have always been content to let local stations, and now regional networks, balkanize the overall market.
link to original post

I think the regional system was much better, almost perfect. Whatever MLB city you were in broadcast range of, that was your team, you could watch and listen to all of their games, but you were also close enough to go to the ballpark sometimes and patronize all the local advertisers. I remember the old WPIX blackout rules where you might not get to see a home game if the Stadium wasn't sold out. Which I always thought was weird, being unless you are in the Bronx or Harlem just putting on your shoes and going over to Yankee Stadium because you see the TV broadcast is preempted isn't going to happen.

A return to that system would support local fandom, and being all the TV stations are capable of streaming a person who really wants to see a Cardinals game can get the stream from the St. Louis station and pay a couple of bucks, or choose the Away feed. That's how all the crimestreamers do it. I'd rather pay a little than have to screw around with settings and get an unreliable feed on my crimebox.

Quote: AutomaticMonkey

Quote: billryan

Quote: gordonm888

Quote: billryan

The World Series is almost set, and it looks like it will be the owners' nightmare. The Brewers were 21st in payroll and come from a small market. The two AL teams still competing are 28th and 29th in payroll, and both are considered small-market clubs.
The owners hoped for a Dodgers-Yankees series to convince everyone that small-market teams can't compete without a salary cap.
The ratings will be interesting.
link to original post

For many reasons, MLB is likely facing future television contracts with less money. It's a declining sport and negotiations with TV networks are about to begin. Bad timing for a "Who Cares?" World Series.

And remember, baseball players who sign contracts for over $200 million are not an oppressed labor force.
link to original post

The owners are in a very sticky situation. They have worked hard to reclaim all television rights after the 2028 season, but a prolonged work shortage will kick in for the 2029 season. Any season with fewer than 110 regular-season games extends the networks' deals another year.
Regional sports networks worked well in the territory days, but it is well past time baseball embraced the streaming era and recognized that people in Kansas City would rather see a good ballgame than the Royals, and that someone in NYC might enjoy seeing the Cardinals play the Mariners.
MLB games are the #1 draw in almost every local market. They dominate the competition in most markets but have always been content to let local stations, and now regional networks, balkanize the overall market.
link to original post

I think the regional system was much better, almost perfect. Whatever MLB city you were in broadcast range of, that was your team, you could watch and listen to all of their games, but you were also close enough to go to the ballpark sometimes and patronize all the local advertisers. I remember the old WPIX blackout rules where you might not get to see a home game if the Stadium wasn't sold out. Which I always thought was weird, being unless you are in the Bronx or Harlem just putting on your shoes and going over to Yankee Stadium because you see the TV broadcast is preempted isn't going to happen.

A return to that system would support local fandom, and being all the TV stations are capable of streaming a person who really wants to see a Cardinals game can get the stream from the St. Louis station and pay a couple of bucks, or choose the Away feed. That's how all the crimestreamers do it. I'd rather pay a little than have to screw around with settings and get an unreliable feed on my crimebox.
link to original post

I don't know what you are remembering, but MLB never had a local regular season blackout rule. The Mets and Yankees announced their television schedule ahead of the season. Post-season games were shown on national TV, with local broadcasts allowed until the early 1980s. They did have blackouts in local markets for playoff games that didn't sell out. WPIX would typically cover broadcast all regular season home games and most road games except for West Coast games that would go overnight in NY.
WOR covered all Met home games and about half the road games. WOR did not broadcast the game in St. Louis when Steve Carlton struck out a record 19 Mets but lost the game when Swoboda hit his second home run of the game
If baseball has its way, starting in 2029, you'll be able to use their system to watch any of 15 games five nights a week, but on Thursdays and Sunday nights,as well as Saturday afternoons, you'll only have one game to watch.
The " experts" seem to have convinced Manfred that a less-is-more strategy will work for MLB. This issue dwarves the salary cap issues. One problem is the Yankees have a very profitable network and don't want to share it with teams like the Marlins and Royals. This proposed system will help about 25 clubs but hurt the Yankees, Dodgers, Phillies and Baltimore.
The Yankees made about 600 million for their broadcasts last year. 200 million from national contracts and 400 million from YES Network.
Kansas City got the same 200 million for the national contract but only about thirty million for local rights. Manfred wants to split that money evenly. The Royals' ownership loves that idea. The Yankees ,not so much.

Quote: billryan

Quote: AutomaticMonkey

Quote: billryan

Quote: gordonm888

Quote: billryan

The World Series is almost set, and it looks like it will be the owners' nightmare. The Brewers were 21st in payroll and come from a small market. The two AL teams still competing are 28th and 29th in payroll, and both are considered small-market clubs.
The owners hoped for a Dodgers-Yankees series to convince everyone that small-market teams can't compete without a salary cap.
The ratings will be interesting.
link to original post

For many reasons, MLB is likely facing future television contracts with less money. It's a declining sport and negotiations with TV networks are about to begin. Bad timing for a "Who Cares?" World Series.

And remember, baseball players who sign contracts for over $200 million are not an oppressed labor force.
link to original post

The owners are in a very sticky situation. They have worked hard to reclaim all television rights after the 2028 season, but a prolonged work shortage will kick in for the 2029 season. Any season with fewer than 110 regular-season games extends the networks' deals another year.
Regional sports networks worked well in the territory days, but it is well past time baseball embraced the streaming era and recognized that people in Kansas City would rather see a good ballgame than the Royals, and that someone in NYC might enjoy seeing the Cardinals play the Mariners.
MLB games are the #1 draw in almost every local market. They dominate the competition in most markets but have always been content to let local stations, and now regional networks, balkanize the overall market.
link to original post

I think the regional system was much better, almost perfect. Whatever MLB city you were in broadcast range of, that was your team, you could watch and listen to all of their games, but you were also close enough to go to the ballpark sometimes and patronize all the local advertisers. I remember the old WPIX blackout rules where you might not get to see a home game if the Stadium wasn't sold out. Which I always thought was weird, being unless you are in the Bronx or Harlem just putting on your shoes and going over to Yankee Stadium because you see the TV broadcast is preempted isn't going to happen.

A return to that system would support local fandom, and being all the TV stations are capable of streaming a person who really wants to see a Cardinals game can get the stream from the St. Louis station and pay a couple of bucks, or choose the Away feed. That's how all the crimestreamers do it. I'd rather pay a little than have to screw around with settings and get an unreliable feed on my crimebox.
link to original post

I don't know what you are remembering, but MLB never had a local regular season blackout rule. The Mets and Yankees announced their television schedule ahead of the season. Post-season games were shown on national TV, with local broadcasts allowed until the early 1980s. They did have blackouts in local markets for playoff games that didn't sell out. WPIX would typically cover broadcast all regular season home games and most road games except for West Coast games that would go overnight in NY.
WOR covered all Met home games and about half the road games. WOR did not broadcast the game in St. Louis when Steve Carlton struck out a record 19 Mets but lost the game when Swoboda hit his second home run of the game
If baseball has its way, starting in 2029, you'll be able to use their system to watch any of 15 games five nights a week, but on Thursdays and Sunday nights,as well as Saturday afternoons, you'll only have one game to watch.
The " experts" seem to have convinced Manfred that a less-is-more strategy will work for MLB. This issue dwarves the salary cap issues. One problem is the Yankees have a very profitable network and don't want to share it with teams like the Marlins and Royals. This proposed system will help about 25 clubs but hurt the Yankees, Dodgers, Phillies and Baltimore.
The Yankees made about 600 million for their broadcasts last year. 200 million from national contracts and 400 million from YES Network.
Kansas City got the same 200 million for the national contract but only about thirty million for local rights. Manfred wants to split that money evenly. The Royals' ownership loves that idea. The Yankees ,not so much.
link to original post

I don't think it was a MLB-wide rule but a Yankee rule. That's a ballpark where there are enough people within walking distance to fill the park. There would be no imaginable benefit to a market where the ballpark is on the highway and going to the game is something you have to plan for.

That was in the late 70s and I definitely remember some home games being blacked out due to attendance. But of course we all "definitely remember" things that aren't so.

The Yankees drew fewer than 25,000 fans per game before the new Stadium opened, and even then, attendance topped out at about 30,000 per game. The television schedule was set up and printed months in advance. The Jets had a few games blacked out because of that NFL rule, but baseball didn't.

The major sports event from September 1 to Christmas is the NFL in large cities and college football in small cities - NOT baseball. The highest level of college football has abouts 134 teams in about 130 different cities That's greater than 60 games every weekend. Here in Knoxville there are usually 8 home games in a season and the entire city shuts down for the football game. 100,000 fans attend each game and there are an unknown number (10s of thousands) of football viewing parties in private homes. Stores close or operate with minimal staff. All vehicular travel is planned to avoid the massive traffic congestion in the downtown area where the stadium is located..

Nationally, college football now draws higher ratings than MLB in this timeframe. Baseball delays their most attractive games -the playoffs and WS - until October and halfway through November. That's the period when they are no better than the third most popular sport. on TV.

Interest in baseball is in decline. Decline means less money for everyone; for owners and ultimately for players.

Quote: gordonm888

The major sports event from September 1 to Christmas is the NFL in large cities and college football in small cities - NOT baseball. The highest level of college football has abouts 134 teams in about 130 different cities That's greater than 60 games every weekend. Here in Knoxville there are usually 8 home games in a season and the entire city shuts down for the football game. 100,000 fans attend each game and there are an unknown number (10s of thousands) of football viewing parties in private homes. Stores close or operate with minimal staff. All vehicular travel is planned to avoid the massive traffic congestion in the downtown area where the stadium is located..

Nationally, college football now draws higher ratings than MLB in this timeframe. Baseball delays their most attractive games -the playoffs and WS - until October and halfway through November. That's the period when they are no better than the third most popular sport. on TV.

Interest in baseball is in decline. Decline means less money for everyone; for owners and ultimately for players.
link to original post

Bingo. The Vols fill that 100k stadium with ease. The Guardians could NOT SELL OUT their 33,500 seat stadium for the previous LCS game there. If you live in Cleveland, you can just walk up to the gate around game time and buy a face value ticket. Baseball ‘owns’ the summer between the end of the NBA/NHL and beginning of football. But it’s a poor sister before and after that. Golf was smart to pull its main events from to non football season.

If baseball is in decline, why have franchise values skyrocketed?

The Dodgers will sell for $4 billion, double what the current owners paid.
The Mets sold for over $2 billion; the previous owner paid about $500 million.
The Angels sold for $4 billion after Artie Moreno paid $180 million.
The Padres sold for 3.9 billion.
The Oakland A's sold for 1.8 billion after the owners paid $85 million for them twenty years ago.
The Marlins, one of the group's weakest franchises, sold for $ 1.2 billion. The old owners paid 143 million for the team.

Why are teams' values exploding? It's a simple formula. Teams sell for about seven times annual revenue. A team with a national TV deal worth 400 million a year is worth much more than one with a $200 million national deal and a thirty million local deal. Local deals tend to be season-by-season or short-term.

Remember, the Yankees aren't worth twelve billion or more because they have won a gazillion World Series. They are worth it because they make $600 million a year just on television rights. They have a huge audience who follow them 200 days a year, not ten or twelve like a college football team. It's really an apples-to-oranges comparison.
Baseball dominates the summer and midweek autumn nights. That has obvious value.

It would be really cool if all the sports franchises declared IPOs and became publicly traded corporations. I'd pay a premium just to be able to vote my shares of YANK.

That would really change everything, with the ownership being a mix of fans and disinterested investors. And sports betting might become obsolete, replaced by options trading on the franchises. That would be much harder for illegally betting players to corrupt.

Quote: billryan

If baseball is in decline, why have franchise values skyrocketed?

The Dodgers will sell for $4 billion, double what the current owners paid.
The Mets sold for over $2 billion; the previous owner paid about $500 million.
The Angels sold for $4 billion after Artie Moreno paid $180 million.
The Padres sold for 3.9 billion.
The Oakland A's sold for 1.8 billion after the owners paid $85 million for them twenty years ago.
The Marlins, one of the group's weakest franchises, sold for $ 1.2 billion. The old owners paid 143 million for the team.

Why are teams' values exploding? It's a simple formula. Teams sell for about seven times annual revenue. A team with a national TV deal worth 400 million a year is worth much more than one with a $200 million national deal and a thirty million local deal. Local deals tend to be season-by-season or short-term.

Remember, the Yankees aren't worth twelve billion or more because they have won a gazillion World Series. They are worth it because they make $600 million a year just on television rights. They have a huge audience who follow them 200 days a year, not ten or twelve like a college football team. It's really an apples-to-oranges comparison.
Baseball dominates the summer and midweek autumn nights. That has obvious value.
link to original post

Becuase the "decline" is entirely a product of the imagination and preference of some people here, and like many things typical of inhabitants of this peculiar internet forum, is not tethered to reality. TV ratings are up 44% and the multi-year increase in attendance continues, doing so with a younger demographic. And none of this will penetrate the belief systems of whatever WoV folk decide they "know."

Though MLB does indeed face a serious looming problem: the expiration of the CBA (contract with the players' union), and the liklihood of a strike/lockout in '27. With the potential for a multi-year hangover if that's how it goes. As it probably will.

Quote: Yahoo Sports

National MLB regular-season games are averaging 2.28 million viewers per game, which is up 44% compared to the prior year

Meantime:

Quote: Yahoo Sports

College football interest and television viewership are down through the first month of the 2026 season.

Viewership and Ratings Trends

• Down 11%: Average viewership per FBS game broadcast dropped 11% (to 1.7 million viewers) compared to the first four weeks of the 2025 season.
• Top-End Drop: Peak regular-season viewership reached 14 million for Ohio State vs. Texas, which is lower than the 16.6 million drawn by the same matchup the previous year.
• Stable Volume: Total viewing hours remain relatively stable because networks are broadcasting more games overall.