It’s Been 30 Years Since The Last Outdoor, Daytime World Series Game Was Played – Who’s to Blame? MLB, FOX & “TV Research People”
World Series baseball the way it used to be played – during the day. Pirates center fielder Bill Virdon awaits the first pitch from Yankees ace Whitey Ford to begin game 3 of the 1960 World Series at Yankee Stadium, October 8, 1960.
30 years ago on October 14, 1984 the Detroit Tigers and San Diego Padres played game 5 of the World Series at Tigers Stadium under what used to be normal circumstances – they played a day game.
Three years later in 1987 the Minnesota Twins and St. Louis Cardinals also played a day game in the World Series, but you would not have known it because the Twins played their home games indoors at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.
Since then, every World Series game has been played at night.
Even though major league teams began playing night baseball as early as 1935 (the Cincinnati Reds were the first team to install lights) it took another 36 years to play a World Series game at night.
It all started innocuously enough in 1971 when game 4 in Pittsburgh matched the Orioles against the Pirates for a night game. During the 1970’s, slowly but surely, more and more World Series games were scheduled at night. Now all games are at night.
Why The World Series Should Be Played In The Daytime
Television networks are responsible for scheduling start times of World Series games. The networks receive that privilege when they pay MLB for the broadcast rights. It is their firm belief that night games will attract more viewers.
They are clearly mistaken.
Viewership for the World Series has declined steadily over the years. There is direct competition from the NFL. But this has a lot to do with the decline in baseball’s popularity and the countless alternate entertainment choices that have cropped up over the last 30 years.
The way I see it, the networks (FOX most recently, ABC, NBC and CBS in past years) that broadcast the World Series have contributed to decreased viewership by starting games so late that it is difficult for adults to stay up to watch them. For viewers in western or mountain time zones it is less of a problem, but in eastern and central time zones, with the World Series games typically lasting three plus hours, it becomes a challenge to stay awake. So if it is hard for adults to stay up and watch, what about children?
With few exceptions it is almost impossible to cultivate a next generation of baseball fans when the World Series, baseball’s premier event, is on the air close to midnight. If anything, the networks have alienated a generation and a half of potential baseball fans by putting the supposed crown jewel of baseball on at a time when most children are headed to bed by the third inning.
What are the main reasons no World Series afternoon games are played?
On weekends, the networks (FOX for the past 14 years) do not want to go head to head with NFL or college football.
You know what? It’s time to abandon that argument. People who want to watch football as their first choice are going to watch football. While some die-hard sports fans are torn between watching football and baseball, most are not. If they really want, they can DVR or TiVo one or the other. Few hardcore football fans are big baseball fans anyhow; let them go watch their football games.
But the main reason for no day World Series games is audience size. The TV networks and MLB all want the BIGGEST audience possible.
Here is how MLB and FOX views their potential audience.
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig who is retiring after the 2014 season, said in 2009:
“Our goal is to schedule games so the largest number of people can watch, and FOX has gone to an enormous amount of effort to make this happen. It’s been a great joint effort between the two us.”
FOX Sports president Ed Goren said: “This is a very special relationship between FOX and the Commissioner and his staff. It’s the gold standard. We’ve worked very well together through the years, and this is just another example of why we’ve been able to accomplish so much.”
Selig also introduced a more dramatic, retro idea: weekend afternoon World Series games. The network ultimately deemed that impractical.
“It certainly was considered,” Goren said, “and the Commissioner has certainly expressed his interest in it. But it gets back to economics: What I do know, from our research people, is that if we played Saturday afternoon, viewership would be 30 percent lower. And there would be an economic impact to that.”
“It’s not going to happen in 2009, but we’ll certainly continue to talk about it,” Selig said. “But, as I said, our goal is to have the largest number of people watching, and the truth is the potential audience is 30 percent greater in primetime at night.
What a bunch of malarkey.
Let’s put aside the beauty of afternoon baseball and “that’s the way baseball was meant to be played” argument. The sheer novelty of playing at least one World Series game, if not all the weekend games, during the day would not detract from viewership, but would vastly increase the audience. The number of children watching (they don’t count to the FOX advertisers i.e. Budweiser; Chevrolet and Viagra) would jump dramatically.
The “research people” are what is wrong with baseball and our society in general. These pencil pushers have sanitized music, entertainment and sports to a level of banality that is sickening. As the late, great comedian Bill Hicks said about market researchers “Quit putting a goddamn dollar sign on every f***ing thing on this planet!”
No one with the power in any of the entertainment fields has the guts to go with their heart anymore. Everything is examined, focused grouped and test-marketed to death before being implemented. God help the executive who has not relied on a research group, because there are millions of dollars at stake.
Here is what MLB, FOX and the brilliant “research people” have missed: The biggest audience is not the best audience.
It is better to have 5 million people who are excited, engaged and dedicated to a food, religion, band, book, TV show or sport, rather than 25 million nonchalant fans that are here today, gone tomorrow. I know it is not the financially astute move as advertising rates drop as audiences decrease. However the advertisers would benefit from a truly engaged audience. If the sport’s popularity keeps declining, you can drop baseball from “hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet” as things that go together in the good old U.S.A., as the old ad jingle used to go.
Until someone at FOX makes a bold move of scheduling afternoon games, the final result will remain the same – dwindling World Series ratings with a handful of bleary-eyed east coast baseball fans still watching.
Bring you children, your grandchildren, and your nieces and nephews to Fenway Park to see the Red Sox play baseball, then kiss their college funds goodbye!
I like the idea of daytime WS baseball also, but (for example), a 1pm start on the East Coast means a 10am start here in the West. I for one find it hard to get pumped up for any kind of sporting event at 10 in the morning…especially a Saturday or Sunday morning. Starting the games at 4pm eastern…1pm pacific would make more sense.
How late is too late for a baseball game?
If a weekday game, or a Sunday night game, lasts until midnight, isn’t that too late for people who must work in just a few hours? Or, for kids who must go to school?
Put those two groups together, and isn’t that a considerable number?
Then, in this generation, games can be taped and see by viewers later.
We did make it a lot of years with all World Series games beginning at 1 p.m. local time.
How did we do that? And remember, many teams begin their regular games at 7 p.m., local time. Not at least an hour later for a World Series game.
I’d like to see World Series day games too. Or at the very least, games that end before midnight. Unless my Phillies are playing or a team is on the verge of ending a several decades long championship drought, I can’t be bothered staying up until the final out. But the reality is, MLB cares about one thing and one thing only: money. It’s not my money; so *I* don’t care. But for the players, many of whom are earning near the league minimum and will be forced into retirement after a few short years, perhaps the difference between afternoon and prime time World Series games *is* a significant amount of money. So that’s why the league does it.
I disagree with your statement that “advertisers would benefit from a truly engaged audience.” I’m an Eagles fan and watched every minute of Super Bowl LII. Speaking for myself, I doubt that I bought more products that were advertised in that game than in other Super Bowls. Companies that advertise during the Super Bowl or World Series just want their messages to be seen by the largest audience possible.
Thanks for your opinion. Addressing all 3 of your separate replies here:
First, the players get ZERO from the broadcasting of postseason games. Nothing. Not a dollar.
The players also don’t get credited for any service time in postseason either, which affects how their pension is computed.
All the money that FOX pays for the World Series and playoff game rights goes into MLB’s coffers and is split among the teams owners.
That is why FOX controls every aspect of how the World Series is presented. The FOX deal was extended to 2028. So no World Series day game for the next nine years, unless it will generate more money for FOX.
All the monies players receive are strictly from the revenue of the gate attendance of the post season games. Those monies are divided between players and owners and then the players split is decided by the winning team getting their share and the losing team getting the smaller share. The money those teams receive is pooled and shares, some full, some partial are split among the players and team personnel. The Astros full share in 2017 was $438,901.57. Not a small chunk of change especially for a player earning the minimum. which by the way is…well let’s talk about that.
Somehow or other I don’t feel sorry for a “union” whose members make a MINIMUM (in 2019) salary of $550,000 per season. They are the privileged few who, whether their careers are one year or 15 years, should be thankful they are being paid for playing a game. And, that they are able to earn what many Americans will not earn in 10 years of gainful employment.
Next, regarding the advertising. Unfortunately being closely associated to the world of advertising as I am, I can safely say that is true and at the same time false. This would require a long explanation about the perceptions among the masses of effective advertising which I will not get into here.
Suffice to say, on one hand there are many advertisers (the one’s with inept marketing executives in charge) who only want the most eyeballs on their ads as you pointed out. This makes up the majority of television ads. Usually by lumbering, behemoth corporations who have annual dividends they must report to stockholders.
Then there are some smart companies who want extremely specific demographics when advertising and that is why they were the among the first to utilize narrowcasting. This is broadcasting of ads to specific areas, at specific times to very specific age groups with specific tendencies.
Those advertisers are the one’s who understand and realize what I pointed out: its better to reach 2,000 people that might care about a product or service than show it to 10,000 of which 9,000 who don’t give a damn. Think about your local cable company (Comcast?) and how they preempt some commercials for VERY local ads during Philly games.
Regarding the Super Bowl – it doesn’t compete with anything and is a spectacle unto itself.
You are one hundred percent correct – MLB cares about one thing at the end of the day, and that’s more revenue from any source. Partnering with casinos? Pete Rose is cracking up right now. Get ready for advertising on uniforms. More on that point later…
Thanks again.
Baseball needs to get rid of Fox and Fox needs to get rid of Joe Buck. I can’t watch under current conditions..and I’m a lifetime fan of baseball.
The Super Bowl starts at 6pm eastern
The Super Bowl doesn’t have to compete with late afternoon NFL games
Baseball players give peak performance when the temperature is summery. They are not at their best playing in the north at night in late October.
Absolutely right. Yes, technically the current audience will likely decline with day games but long term, you need to attract new fans. Can’t do that if kids go to bed before the game even starts. So a smaller short term audience would likely translate to a larger long term audience. Have to play World Series games so kids can watch.
I remember a day time World Series game when I saw Detroit and San Diego play in 1984 and Minnesota and Saint Louis in 1987 and Baltimore and Philadelphia in 1983. I think having World Series games on Friday or Saturday would work if you start the games at 4pm est. on FOX. MLB needs to think of ways to bring their sport to the masses because a sport becomes irrelevant if fans do not care about it or figure out ways to watch it.
Whatever happened to family values, morals and principals? It looks like that doesn’t exist anymore. Our traditional values have been replaced by greedy lawyers, corrupt politicians, and corporations who own and control everything, even baseball. These people don’t care about our families and our children, all they care about is themselves and their money. They own everything, even baseball. If you even dare to question them, they will just laugh at you anyways. Baseball and other sports is now considered a business and no longer a sport anymore. We as dedicated sports fans have to pay outrageous ticket prices if we want to take our families out to see our favorite teams play. At least they could do is let us enjoy watching a World Series game on the weekend during the daytime so that everyone including our kids can see it.
Agreed… on every point. One solution: don’t pay a dollar to attend these business happenings that pass themselves off as professional sports games. It’s a shame but it’s true.
The few pro sports games I’ve seen in person for the past 20 years has been through free tickets given to me. I will not contribute a dime to owners through ticket revenue and help pay the crazy salaries bestowed upon the prima donna athletes. Unfortunately a good chunk of the income is derived through the fat broadcast contracts. And because of that, those broadcast corporations get what they want, including night World Series baseball. That, no one can control.
Ever hear of radio, 9 to 5 workers? You can have that on and work too, or perhaps watch during your breaks, or gee, have some time where everyone gets to listen and work.
I remember how special it was when our 5th grade teacher let us listen to the world series on the radio during school. But then, I am also against every national holiday being homogenized into Mondays thereby making more “great shopping weekends.” How cool was a day off during the week–too short to go out of town, one just chilled, relaxed with friends, thought about the meaning of the holiday like the President’s birthday. There was more of a sense of community and sharing. It’s all about money now and it’s a shame.
One of my earliest school memories is when our kindergarten class watched the Cardinals defeat the Red Sox in the 1967 World Series. Good times when 5-years olds are gleefully jumping up and down.
A day game for a championship game of any sport played during the typical work week (mon-fri) has no business being played during the day. Denying people who work during the day to see the game is just plain stupidity. There is nothing special about a day game and the majority of working folks would not be able to see it so I have no idea why anyone thinks a day game is a good idea on any level.
Never said there should be weekday World Series games, specifically the article says weekend games.
There is no excuse to play the games at night on the weekend. If MLB is serious about regaining interest among children and adolescents, day games do make sense.
There will be more young people watching on television and warmer weather for the players and fans who attend the games. The TV audience dwindles dramatically on the east coast with some games dragging on until midnight or later. Who wants to watch at 11:30 at night? Using your argument, working people have to get up the next day. The answer is to start the weekday games at 7pm EST like they will for game 2 of this year’s World Series… because of the impending bad weather!
Having experienced World Series day games I can tell you firsthand, it is special.
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baseball was meant to be played during the day, not at midnight.
100% agreed. Too long and late for kids, too late even for adults, and the tyranny of the MLB/tv network axis chasing the fast money will doom the sport in the long run.