There has been a lot of chatter that a San Francisco Giants and the Texas Rangers World Series is not what Fox Sports wants. This baffles me. Not because I am an avid Giants fan. My mood changes with every pitch and this postseason has been no different.
This is not the first time that Fox Sports has been leery of a small market team making it to the championship. In February, Fox wanted a Brett Favre and Peyton Manning Super Bowl. It had more of a broad appeal to the casual audience than the New Orleans Saints. Fox could not have been too disappointed when the rating came out because it received the highest Nielson rating TV of all time with 106 million viewers, knocking off the season finale of mash in 1983 a record that stood for 27 years.
New York does the hold the broadest appeal. Even if you live outside of New York most fans of other teams hate the Yankees. Not only do they love to root against them, but they detest how they win by overpaying players. However, what Fox fails to acknowledge is that if it is a New York and Philadelphia in the World Series Fox will lose a good chunk of its Midwest and West Coast viewers.
What Fox has ignored is that it’s not just San Francisco that will be watching. It will be the entire Bay Area. Giant fans are all over, Healdsburg to the north, Oakland to the east, and as far south as San Jose. They are all smashing their skulls in, as Giants baseball really is “torture,” and has such a wide-ranging appeal.
San Francisco-Oakland is the sixth largest TV market according to Nielsen Media Research Inc. If the Rangers make it to the Fall Classic, that should not worry Fox either because are the fifth largest market. Having two teams in the top seven largest markets should be ideal for any station.
The Cincinnati Reds and the Baltimore Orioles would be the lowest rated Fall Classic of all time. They are the 34th and 26th, respectively. If those two middle-of the-road TV markets would clash it would be the dullest and most monotonous Worlds Series ever. Then Fox could hit its panic button and send all their second rate analysts and out –of-work ball players, like George Foster and Denny McLain to be the experts on each team.
I understand that New York and Philadelphia are two powerhouse TV media markets, despite know this I am sick of hearing all those so-called “experts” pick against the smaller markets and belittle them to give more hype for a larger market team.