Commentary

Sports Leagues Face Lower-Rated All-Star Events -- But Advertisers Still Come To Play

by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, July 15, 2010

Major League Baseball's All-Star game seems to matter less each year for TV viewers -- even if a potential World Series team is pulling for a win. But for advertisers, it's still good business.

Television viewership dipped again, some 16%, for the game in Anaheim, Calif., down to a new record low of 12 million viewers who watched the game on Fox on Tuesday, according to Nielsen.

This hasn't been for a lack of trying, part of Major League Baseball's efforts to create more interest in baseball. A win in the All-Star game gives home field advantage in the World Series to the league that comes out on top.

It's not just the All-Star game itself, but now All-Star Weekend, which includes one of the former big draws, the Home Run Derby. Even the Derby is losing zip as well in recent years.

The NFL tried to give the Pro Bowl more interest earlier this year by moving the game to a week before the Super Bowl.

Of course, in any of these "exhibitions," professional athletes worry about their future value due to possible injuries. That's at the root of the problem.

At the same time, while baseball managers want to win the game, they are also at odds in trying to play as many players are possible.

For baseball, all this has a negative effect. The team with the best record -- right now the New York Yankees -- could win 115 games this season but still won't get home field advantage.

Maybe things should change: If the New York Yankees, say, had the best inter-league record, maybe they should be awarded home-field advantage. Of course, this still leaves the problem of what to do with the All-Star game.

The NBA All-Star Weekend has similar problems. The game is a virtual pinball scoring event, with a blizzard of dunks among little to no defense being played. Viewers/fans like big scoring events, for sure. But there seems little dramatic effect.

Sports leagues believe fans want to see the best athletes show off their wares in one big event. Trouble is, the game is a manufactured effort, not organic to the sport.

So if few or none of these games pull in real big numbers of viewers, why give them air time?

The baseball one, anyway, gives TV advertisers a place to go for their summer campaigns -- movies, soft-drinks, whatever --somewhere in the middle of the low TV usage summer time. And while overall numbers were indeed low, Fox's All-Star game was still the most viewed TV show of the night. Baseball still attracts hard-to-get male viewers.

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3 comments about "Sports Leagues Face Lower-Rated All-Star Events -- But Advertisers Still Come To Play ".

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Steve Beverly from Union Broadcasting System, July 16, 2010 at 1:49 a.m.
Wayne, a huge problem in the perception of the All-Star Game (and, for the fact, the NFL Pro Bowl) is the volume of selectees who suddenly develop previously-undisclosed "injuries" that conveniently take them out of the contest. The game has long since lost its fervor and prestige with the players. Most fans under 50 are unaware that we once had two All-Star Games per season. One was jettisoned in 1963 as overkill. Let's face it, only the hardcores are still watching and if advertisers ever get wise to that, these exhibitions will go the route of the TV soap opera.
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Stanford Crane from NewGuard Entertainment Corp, July 16, 2010 at 10:17 a.m.

Great article, Wayne and as a Yankee fan, I agree, but perhaps the player salaries and the drug scandals have taken a toll on the game of baseball. People feel a little disconnected to a player who bats a little over .200 making $5,000,000 a year when they are working their tails off and making $50,000. It seems that the drug scandal has touched almost every superstar players of recent memory, so that again makes the game seem less valuable. Still, 12 million viewers isn't that bad. Most shows would love to have that following.

Rob Frydlewicz from DentsuAegis, July 17, 2010 at 12:51 a.m.

In the top of the 9th inning the 3 batters the NL sent up to bat were more or less no-names, far from All-Star caliber. The All-Star Game's problem is its egalitarian goal. I seriously doubt that there would be appreciably fewer viewers if a player from Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Cleveland & Houston (and a few others) weren't represented.

Still, 12 million viewers has got to make it one of the top 3 shows of the week. And it's 2 million higher than what LeBron generated the week before (albeit on cable).