Crushing the Notion That Tampa Bay in the Playoffs Will Somehow Be Bad for Baseball
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Let’s try to nip something in the bud before it gains any more steam: If the Tampa Bay Rays make the playoffs, it will be fantastic for baseball as an institution, television ratings be damned. Nobody denies that ratings for a Rays playoff series would be lower than for, say, a Yankees-White Sox series. However, that short term concern should be outweighed by the larger gains made by the Rays’ rebirth.↵↵The leading internet crusader of the anti-Rays crowd right now is the influential sports blog, The Big Lead. In late June, and again yesterday, they posted about the disaster that would be a Rays playoff run. For some reason, they’ve got it in their heads that since television ratings are The Measure of a league’s popularity and influence, and the Rays won’t garner a large national TV audience, then that’s bad for baseball as a whole.↵
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↵Unfortunately for that argument, national TV ratings are not the be-all, end-all. In a sports media world that grows increasingly niche-oriented, the NBA and MLB were wise to shift national TV contracts to cable, and the NFL had no problem shifting its premiere broadcast, Monday Night Football, to cable. Hoops and baseball don't get the same massive general audiences that they used to, but the leagues can put more games in front of their core audiences -- sports fans -- serving them better. On a local level, instead of broadcasting 60 games on network, teams now tend to broadcast 25 over the air and 137 on a regional cable network. If you live in Houston and want to watch an Astros game, it'll be on TV. Just like the old days, casual fans will stumble across a game every so often, but the real fans will be able to watch every game if they wish.↵
↵↵And that’s where a Rays’ playoff run will ultimately be good for baseball. Right now, the Rays have almost no fans, relatively speaking. A decade of mediocrity and suck will do that. But also right now, they’re snagging Tampa-St. Pete denizens by the bushel and tossing them on the bandwagon. Make the playoffs, and there may not be any room left on said bandwagon. Continue the winning ways next season, and watch the fan community grow into a giddy mob of irrational joy and hatred, just like every other fan base. Those are the people who matter, those folks being enticed to invest emotionally, to buy a jersey, to pump their fists when Eric Hinske hits a double. They’re harvesting real fans.↵
↵↵There is no way a Rays playoff run is taking fans from elsewhere away from the game. Someone in Seattle won’t decide to stop caring about baseball if the Rays make the playoffs. As pointed out in comments to one of The Big Lead’s posts, someone on the South Side of Chicago won’t decide to give up his tickets to a playoff game because the Rays are their team’s opponent. Baseball fandom is by and large local, so adding yet another outpost where the quintessential American game thrives will only be good for MLB.↵
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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
