Turner Sports cannot be pleased that its first foray into the League Championship Series will not involve either the Chicago Cubs or Philadelphia Phillies.
Instead of a battle between two storied, starved franchises from the #3 and #4 television markets in the U.S., TBS is the unwilling recipient of a National League Championship Series featuring the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies — two teams from the #12 and #18 markets, respectively, neither of which existed before 1993.
The Diamondbacks and Rockies are relatively anonymous teams that most people did not see during the regular season. Neither team has a mainstream superstar, or even an interesting backstory. While TBS could have had a field day with the Cubs’ 99 years of futility or the championship drought in the city of Philadelphia, there is not much that can be said about an Arizona team that won a World Series within the first four years of its existence and a Colorado Rockies team that has been mostly irrelevant for the first fourteen years of its existence.
With mid-sized markets and a lack of mainstream stars, Rockies/Diamondbacks looks to be a series that will only appeal to baseball fans. And while that alone should keep the ratings somewhat decent, the numbers will certainly pale in comparison to the ratings for the ALCS — which will not only be helped by the storied, big-market Red Sox, but will also air on broadcast (FOX). Should the Yankees come back against Cleveland and play the Red Sox, there is the possibility that the ALCS could draw three to four times the rating of the NLCS.
Not only does the NLCS looks to be a ratings dud, but TBS has also had to deal with short series during its inaugural coverage of the Division Series. While the ratings have been the best TBS has seen in several years, only one of the four Division Series has lasted beyond three games. As a result, TBS will lose a full night of baseball coverage on Tuesday (and potentially Wednesday as well, should the Cleveland Indians finish off the New York Yankees tonight). Short series are never good for ratings, and should Yankees/Indians end in four games, TBS will miss out completely on the ratings magnet that is the deciding game of a playoff series.
With so many short series and a lackluster NLCS on the way, this could not have been what Turner envisioned for the start of its MLB coverage. That being said, Game 4 of Yankees/Indians should draw a huge rating tonight, and even an NLCS featuring relative no-name teams like the Diamondbacks and Rockies should draw good numbers. Overall, while the postseason could have played out much better for Turner, any complaints are likely not on how the network has performed so far, but on what could have been.
