MLB and Union talk major rule changes

[atomic]

3 hours ago, weams said:

Most Americans don't care for soccer as a spectator sport. 

I was talking worldwide.  And a lot of Americans watch foreign teams.  When they have friendlies in the US of top foreign teams they out draw baseball games.  If you would consider MLS a minor league they draw quite well.

 

[atomic]

2 hours ago, weams said:

How about the US ones?  Many?

 

4 hours ago, weams said:

Most Americans don't care for soccer as a spectator sport. 

11 MLS teams had higher average attendance than the Orioles last season. All 23 MLS were higher than the Marlins.  If you moved Barcelona, Real Madrid,  Bayern Munich,  and Manchester City etc to US and put them in a league they would out draw the Yankees.

[weams]

17 minutes ago, atomic said:

I was talking worldwide.  And a lot of Americans watch foreign teams.  When they have friendlies in the US of top foreign teams they out draw baseball games.  If you would consider MLS a minor league they draw quite well.

 

Baseball is an American game. That has caught on elsewhere. 

[weams]

12 minutes ago, atomic said:

 

11 MLS teams had higher average attendance than the Orioles last season. All 23 MLS were higher than the Marlins.  If you moved Barcelona, Real Madrid,  Bayern Munich,  and Manchester City etc to US and put them in a league they would out draw the Yankees.

Do they have a steaming service and nationwide TV deals?

[Tx Oriole]

1 hour ago, atomic said:

I was talking worldwide.  And a lot of Americans watch foreign teams.  When they have friendlies in the US of top foreign teams they out draw baseball games.  If you would consider MLS a minor league they draw quite well.

 

I don't watch soccer. 

[Tx Oriole]

1 hour ago, weams said:

Baseball is an American game. That has caught on elsewhere. 

It sure is. 

[Number5]

1 hour ago, atomic said:

 

11 MLS teams had higher average attendance than the Orioles last season. All 23 MLS were higher than the Marlins.  If you moved Barcelona, Real Madrid,  Bayern Munich,  and Manchester City etc to US and put them in a league they would out draw the Yankees.

They play every night?  Until they do, this is no comparison.

[atomic]

Soccer is tremendously more popular than baseball.  The World series games averaged 14.5 million tv viewers.  The Champions League final had 180 million viewers.  Cricket us way more popular than baseball as well.  If you want to live in ignorance or continue with such a myopic view I cant help you but facts are facts.

Also less and less people watch the World Series.  It is isnt even half of what it was 30 years ago.

 

[Tony-OH]

23 hours ago, Beef Supreme said:

TV would have time to cut away for two 30-second spots. Stats could be displayed when they return to live broadcast. PiP commercials can be run more frequently during the rest of the telecast than they are currently; PiP commercials would not only make up for revenue lost by shortening the time of current pitching changes but would likely exceed current levels if sold aggressively.

Are not most pitching changes signaled by the time managers reach the foul line? Really, it doesn't matter when the signaling occurs if MLB sets a hard time limit for pitching changes. Occasionally, a pitching change is made despite the decision not yet having been made when the manager or coach left the dugout.

The problem is, if you don't make him signal before the line, he can just go out and talk to the pitcher for a bit, giving his relievers more time to warm up and then signal, thus dragging out the pitching change time.

[DrungoHazewood]

22 hours ago, Frobby said:

It’s growing.   Looking at my TV listings, there are 4 foreign games on TV today.   

Probably a lot more than that.  And this is an FA Cup weekend in the UK so there aren't any Premier League matches.

In 2005 there were some games on, it was okay.  Now if you're interested (and for some things don't mind paying for streaming services like NBC Sports Gold) you can watch US (MLS) matches, any English Premier League game (NBC), German Bundesliga (Fox), Italy/France/Spain (BeIN), Mexico (Telemundo?). Champions League is on Fox.  And all kinds of international matches.  DC United is usually on local TV on Newschannel 8 for free.  NBC shows Premier League matches on the main NBC broadcast networks with some frequency, and  something like five matches a weekend on NBC Sports Network, which most people have on cable/satellite.  On a random Saturday in April I'm sure you could watch matches more-or-less continuously from 0730 in the morning through whenever you want to go to bed.

15 years ago the disappointment was there just weren't that many games on.  Today my disappointment is there's still no way in the US to watch 1860 Munich in the German 3. Liga, which is roughly the equivalent of the BaySox.

Not quite apples-to-apples since it's one game vs multiples, but the France-Croatia World Cup Final had 11.8 million viewers in the US on Fox (remember, the US didn't even qualify for the tournament).  The 2018 World Series averaged 14.3 million per game.

[DrungoHazewood]

16 hours ago, atomic said:

Soccer is tremendously more popular than baseball.  The World series games averaged 14.5 million tv viewers.  The Champions League final had 180 million viewers.  Cricket us way more popular than baseball as well.  If you want to live in ignorance or continue with such a myopic view I cant help you but facts are facts.

Also less and less people watch the World Series.  It is isnt even half of what it was 30 years ago.

 

Is cricket really "way more popular than baseball"?  If it is, how much of that is from it being by far the most popular sport in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, which have a combined population of 1.7 billion people? In the UK it's a distant second to soccer, in the US it's probably not in the top 20 sports, it's minor niche in the rest of Europe, China, South America.  There's about 8 countries where cricket is popular, not too different than baseball.  It just so happens that India has like 1/6th of the world's population.

Almost every TV show has ratings half or less of what a comparable one did 30 years ago because of the continued fracturing of media markets and exponential growth of entertainment choices.  30 years ago a significant percentage of the population still had five channels.  The NBA finals TV ratings peaked 21 years ago and is now a little more than half that mark.  The Super Bowl is an exception.

[DrungoHazewood]

19 hours ago, weams said:

Do they have a steaming service and nationwide TV deals?

Yes.

[Can_of_corn]

2 minutes ago, DrungoHazewood said:

Is cricket really "way more popular than baseball"?  If it is, how much of that is from it being by far the most popular sport in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, which have a combined population of 1.7 billion people? In the UK it's a distant second to soccer, in the US it's probably not in the top 20 sports, it's minor niche in the rest of Europe, China, South America.  There's about 8 countries where cricket is popular, not too different than baseball.  It just so happens that India has like 1/6th of the world's population.

Almost every TV show has ratings half or less of what a comparable one did 30 years ago because of the continued fracturing of media markets and exponential growth of entertainment choices.  30 years ago a significant percentage of the population still had five channels.  The NBA finals TV ratings peaked 21 years ago and is now a little more than half that mark.  The Super Bowl is an exception.

Cricket is fairly popular in the Caribbean and in Africa.  The current #2 team in the world is in Africa.

 

[DrungoHazewood]

 

19 hours ago, atomic said:

11 MLS teams had higher average attendance than the Orioles last season. All 23 MLS were higher than the Marlins.  If you moved Barcelona, Real Madrid,  Bayern Munich,  and Manchester City etc to US and put them in a league they would out draw the Yankees.

 

17 hours ago, Number5 said:

They play every night?  Until they do, this is no comparison.

MLS plays 17 home games a season, it's not directly comparable to Major League Baseball.  More games than the NFL, but fewer than the NBA/NHL, and a lot fewer than MLB.  The median MLS team drew about 20,000 a game, and most teams play in relatively new soccer-specific stadiums.  I think the league is pretty well established. 

The big teams atomic mentions do draw very well for friendly matches (exhibitions) in the US.   I saw Barcelona play Man U at FedEx maybe 10 years ago and there were 60k+ there.  But... you're not moving them to the US, and they don't play an 81-game schedule, so it's a bit of a silly comparison.  Barcelona does average 80k+ per home game, and with regular league plus cups and tournaments they probably play around 30 home games a season.  Not too far from an NBA/NHL schedule, and no basketball or hockey team plays in an arena that could even come close to 80,000 seats.

[DrungoHazewood]

8 minutes ago, Can_of_corn said:

Cricket is fairly popular in the Caribbean and in Africa.  The current #2 team in the world is in Africa.

 

Yea, the West Indies team has historically been very good.  South Africa is a power, and I guess Zimbabwe(?) plays, too.  Most of the bigger former British colonies except the US and Canada play at a high level.