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Baseball, Football and a Weekend Without Blackouts?

Oct 9, 2009, 2:18 PM UTC

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â†µThe ratings on Sunday won’t even be close. On Monday, I guarantee you’ll hear that in Denver, the Patriots at Broncos will do some insane 25-plus rating in the CBS late game, while the Rockies hosting the Phillies at 10:07 p.m. ET on TBS will get less than 10. In fact, here’s a bet that the NBC game of Indianapolis at Tennessee on NBC does a better number in Denver than Phillies at Rockies. It’s a Sunday in October, and there’s no debate that the most TVs will be tuned into the football.â†µ

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â†µâ†µIt will, however be interesting to see how often FOX, in particular, updates viewers on the scores of the baseball games. TBS has the Angels at Red Sox on Sunday at 12:07 p.m. ET (nice 9 a.m. wake-up call for Angels fans) with the Dodgers at St. Louis in the 3:37 p.m. slot, if necessary. But FOX has a vested interest in the outcome of the American League Division Series, with the network slated to host both the ALCS and World Series. Will FOX just put the score in its crawl, or will they send it to the studio for game breaks to update us on a game going on in another sport, on another network?â†µ

â†µâ†µIt will also be interesting to see how little people care about football in St. Louis – the Rams play the early game with the Cardinals potentially starting Game Four before the Rams’ game ends. The football game will not be blacked out in St. Louis, despite a few hundred seats still available, but if the Cardinals manage to avoid the sweep after the fly ball to the groin heard ‘round the world, expect that dome to be empty in the fourth quarter with people trying to get over to watch the baseball game, regardless of the Rams’ score. St. Louis is one of the few cities where the baseball rating will crush the football one.â†µ

â†µâ†µAs for the other potential blackout cities, most of them have favorable opponents to help fill the building. Kansas City hosts Dallas. St. Louis, we mentioned, has avoided the blackout and that may be attributable to Brett Favre and the Favrkings. Detroit gets the Steelers this week, so the seats won’t be empty, they’ll just be filled with black and yellow. The only game, by all accounts, that may get blacked out locally is Houston at Arizona, but according to reports, the Cards had their deadline extended to this morning with under 1,000 tickets remaining. â†µ

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â†µFOX
â†µFOX has just five games on the slate this week, which seems like a low number considering just three NFC teams have byes and both the Sunday Night and Monday Night games are AFC matchups. But because of the NFL rule where the visiting conference gets the TV rights, CBS is actually broadcasting four NFC home games (Detroit, NY Giants, Seattle, Arizona). â†µ

â†µâ†µThe marquee game for FOX is clearly Atlanta at San Francisco and the network gives that assignment to Moose, Goose and Kenny. Finally those guys get a good game, even though much of the country won’t be seeing it, and it’s on against the CBS’s game of the week. FOX is taking the ‘when all else fails, go with Dallas’ line of thinking sending Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to a terrible game in Kansas City. Chris Myers, filling in for Dick Stockton who is calling baseball for TBS, teams up with Charles Davis for Minny at Detroit. Sam Rosen and Tim Ryan get Tampa at Philly and Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick get Washington at Carolina. Wow, FOX has some terrible games on paper this week. â†µ

â†µâ†µCBS
â†µCBS has seven games this weekend, so fans of Cleveland and Buffalo get the team of Don Criqui and Randy Cross in an early game. If that doesn’t excite you ... The other early games are a little better for CBS, with Oakland traveling to the Giants, called by Greg Gumbel and Dan Dierdorf, Pittsburgh at Detroit with Dick Enberg and Dan Fouts and Cincinnati at Baltimore. Obviously CBS is more concerned with the cache of big names, as the Steelers and the Giants games are going to most of the county while the best matchup of the lot – Cincy at Baltimore called by Gus Johnson and Steve Tasker – is getting nothing. â†µ

â†µâ†µThe late games for CBS may as well be the late game ¬– singular. Denver hosting New England is going to more than 90 percent of the country, with local pockets getting Jacksonville at Seattle with Kevin Harlan and Solomon Wilcots or Houston at Arizona with Ian Eagle and Rich Gannon. Clearly Denver is the story in the NFL this year, and if you add in Tom Brady to the mix, it’s a Jim Nantz and Phil Simms dream contest for Week Five.â†µ

â†µâ†µMap links and announce crew pairings courtesy of The 506.â†µ

â†µâ†µAnd, rather than post a random video, we’ll end with this. As Jay Sherman once famously told Homer Simpon, “No, Homer, I won’t make fun of you. But I will suggest there may be better things in life than seeing a man get hit in the groin with a football.” Yes, Jay, like a man about to win a playoff game getting hit in the groin with a baseball.â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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