Sports Media Watch presents the 5 biggest Major League Baseball stories of the past 10 years.
#5: Record low ratings
The decade began with the first of 5 separate World Series to draw record low ratings (2000, ?02, ?05, ?06 and ?08). The first record low ? a 12.4 rating for the 2000 World Series ? was terrible back then. Today, it would be a best case scenario. Ratings for the World Series bottomed out with an 8.4 in ?08, the first time ever that the Fall Classic averaged a single-digit rating.
Overall, World Series games averaged approximately 19.3 million viewers during the 2000s, 8 million fewer than in the 1990s (27.3 mil). The 22 lowest rated World Series games in history took place during the 2000s, including 10 in the last three years alone.
Regular season games also saw declines during the 2000s. The MLB Game of the Week on FOX set record-lows in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and the 1.8 average rating in ?09 was down 31% from a 2.6 average in 2000.
Not all the news was bad. Game 7 of the 2001 World Series drew a massive 39.7 million viewers opposite the Emmy Awards, on par with the NFL?s Conference Championship games. The 2003 and 2004 League Championship Series also attracted massive audiences, with four LCS telecasts during that two year span drawing north of 25 million viewers ? including 31.5 million for Red Sox/Yankees Game 7 in ?04.
Even today, Major League Baseball remains a strong television draw ? as evidenced by the numbers for the 2009 World Series. Yankees/Phillies may not have been much of a draw compared to past World Series, but the series accounted for 5 of the 10 most-viewed non-NFL sporting events of 2009.
#4: Contractions?
In early 2001, Major League Baseball owners and Commissioner Bud Selig began talking about the possibility of contraction. The idea of eliminating teams was viewed by some as a bargaining ploy for upcoming labor negotiations, but Selig did not ?sound like a man who is bluffing? (Sports Business Daily, 5/14/01). As proof, Selig announced shortly after the ?01 World Series that MLB owners had voted ?overwhelmingly? to eliminate two teams before the ?02 season (SBD, 11/7/01).
Several teams, including the Twins, Expos, Marlins, Devil Rays and Angels, were named as possible contraction candidates. Of those teams, 2 won the World Series in the 2000s, another made the World Series, and four made playoff appearances.
Overall, baseball ?initially examined 18 clubs as possible contraction candidates,? and even considered either replacing or merging the Angels with the Athletics (New York Times, 3/12/03).
The push to contract teams for the 2002 season lasted into February of ?02, with one report even saying that MLB was ?prepared to wait as late as opening day before abandoning contraction plans? (SBD, 1/31/02). Even after contraction plans were postponed for the 2002 season, Selig was adamant that he was ?committed to contract by at least two teams ? I’ve never seen unanimity quite like with contraction. The vote was 30-0. The only disagreement is that most of them would like to do four, not two? (SBD, 2/6/02).
Contraction talk eventually died down as baseball?s labor negotiations became the big story. As part of baseball?s 2002 collective bargaining agreement, contraction talks were ?deferred ? until 2007? (New York Times, 3/12/03).
#3: ?and labor pains
Contraction talk coincided with negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, a repeat of the ugly ?94 negotiations seemed unthinkable. Then-ESPN reporter Peter Gammons: ?[I]t would be an absolute public relations nightmare and, that’s something Bud Selig isn’t going to allow, and I don’t think Don Fehr would allow it either? (SBD, 9/14/01).
Initially, indications were that 2002 would not be like 1994. In early ?02, the New York Times quoted a source as saying that ?[t]hings are far more amicable than they were in ’94. We have every reason to believe we’ll get an agreement? (SBD, 1/10/02). MLB President and COO Bob DuPuy said in April ?02 that ?[a]s far as we’re concerned, we’ll play the entire 2002 season uninterrupted, and we hope the players share that view? (SBD, 4/2/02).
As time went on, negotiations made little progress. ?There is a feeling of gloom and doom,? Gammons said in May, ?as the people on both sides negotiate towards the inevitability of a work stoppage and the caste system leaves some fans wondering why they are wasting major-league prices ? or time ? on games? (SBD, 5/6/02). Former commissioner Fay Vincent, in June: ?Things look pretty grim? (SBD, 6/3/02).
On August 16, the MLBPA set a strike date of August 30. FOX and ESPN began preparing for life without baseball ? and then-ABC radio host Keith Olbermann later reported that FOX was ?prepared to simply bail? on its MLB television deal had a strike occurred (SBD, 10/31/02).
With just hours to go before the strike was set to begin, MLB and the MLBPA held negotiations deep into the night, eventually reaching a four-year deal. Strike averted, but the damage was done. Then-Chicago Sun-Times columnist Jay Mariotti: ?Play or walk, it feels like the sport has died a few hundred deaths anyway? (SBD, 8/30/02).
#2: Division Series and one LCS move to cable
In 2000, Major League Baseball signed a television deal that put all postseason games on FOX or FOX Family. The deal essentially gave MLB primetime ownership of one of the Big 4 broadcast networks for the entire month of October.
While that was all well and good in 2003 and 2004, when the ALCS and NLCS went seven games and drew large audiences, mediocre numbers in 2005 and 2006 made giving over an entire month to Major League Baseball less appetizing. The fact that month-long baseball coverage essentially preempted primetime entertainment programming did not help.
In 2006, FOX shed most of its playoff coverage, retaining only the World Series and one League Championship Series. As a result, the bulk of Major League Baseball?s postseason now airs on cable network TBS, which has the rights to the entire Division Series and one LCS.
The idea of a League Championship Series on cable would have been unthinkable at the start of the decade. But with the NBA Conference Finals and Monday Night Football already on cable by the time the ?06 deal was done, it was less of a stretch.
In the three seasons TBS has aired postseason baseball games, ratings have been strong in the Division Series ? but weak during the LCS. TBS has aired three of the four least-viewed LCS in history, as well as the 12 lowest-rated primetime LCS telecasts in history. While Game 7 of the ?08 ALCS drew the most viewers for any MLB game ever on cable, the game also stands as the least-viewed Game 7 by a wide margin.
On a positive note, MLB postseason coverage has given TBS its highest rated week ever on two separate occasions (2007 and 2009).
#1: Steroids
The overriding story of the decade was the inescapable specter of steroids.
Baseball?s steroids scandal tainted stars from Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa to Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. World Series heroes such as Troy Glaus, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez and Andy Pettite were also linked to steroid use.
While the beginnings of the steroids scandal trace back to the 1980s, the issue burst onto the scene in 2002. Jose Canseco and the late Ken Caminiti both admitted to using steroids, and both indicated that there was widespread steroid use in Major League Baseball (Canseco said 85% of players used steroids, while Caminiti said 50%). Caminiti later claimed he was taken out of context. In early ?03, David Wells wrote that ?25 to 40 percent of all major leagues are juiced? (si.com, 2/27/03).
Months later, Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi were subpoenaed to testify in a grand jury investigation of BALCO. (Bonds? testimony that he did not knowingly use performance enhancing drugs would lead to his being indicted in ?07.)
Soon after that, Major League Baseball announced that 5-7% of the anonymous drug tests taken during the ?03 season had come back positive, ?exceeding the threshold for the institution of program testing? (Sports Business Daily, 11/14/03). In less than two years, the steroids issue had gone from rumor and vague numbers to the biggest crisis in the sport.
Some of the results from those anonymous tests would eventually leak out, resulting in Rodriguez, Ramirez and Ortiz each being linked to steroid use in ?09.
There was The Mitchell Report, which implicated Clemens, Pettite and many more. There was the testimony of McGwire, Rafael Palmiero and others before Congress in ?05, during which McGwire?s refusal to ?talk about the past? resulted in nearly irrevocable damage to his reputation. Even ‘feel good’ story Rick Ankiel was later reported to have received HGH shipments. Seemingly every day, in every season, another bombshell.
