Game 2 most watched Sat. night LCS since 2004
ByAs we know, the Yankees haven’t been in the American League Championship Series since 2004, and Saturday night’s game was a 13-inning thriller that ended with an Angels’ error shortly after 1 a.m. It is, therefore, not surprising to me that Game 2 was the highest rated Saturday night LCS game since the Yanks and Red Sox squared off in 2004. According to Nielsen numbers, 9.4 million people watched the game — a 53 percent increase from 2008′s Saturday night 11-inning ALCS Game 2. In fact, ratings are up 44 percent for the ALCS over last year. With two teams from the country’s largest media markets squaring off, American League baseball is enjoying a postseason ratings renaissance. As I wrote on Saturday, the Yankees are good for baseball indeed.
As an interesting postscript to the tale of increased TV ratings, Maury Brown explores why games begin at 7:57 during the ALCS. It is apparently MLB and FOX’s nod at the problem of late game times. By starting the game three minutes to 8 p.m., baseball can say the games are starting before 8 p.m. and thus more fans can watch.
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It pains me to agree with you there Ben, but yes, the Yankees are good for baseball…..
That’s like agreeing that the sun comes up in the east.
Yeah, there really wasn’t much sense in denying it….I still hate thoe bastards though. There, now I feel better
Arrgghhh…typing fail…..”those” instead of “thoe”!!!
So many people are tuning in because they love to see Kate Hudson and Jay-Z.
Duh
They’re hoping to see Laura Posada break up a fight between Kate Hudson and Minka Kelly. In the rain.
…wearing white
…panties…
I’d pay double to see that.
Yankees dominate the field. Yankees dominate the ratings.
Oh yeah.
Normalcy is back baby.
Balance in the Force.
http://twitter.com/darthvader/status/4933913039
Just thinking out loud. Say a few thousand (probably much more) come to watch the game today at the Stadium. How does Nielsen account for them? Do the Yanks have to get special permission/pay MLB for the right to broadcast the game today and tomorrow (even though they are not charging admission, food and souvenir sales are still going on)?
Well, Nielsen is a representative sample. I don’t think a few thousand fans at the ballpark throws off their calculations.
That’s unrelated to your second question though. I’m fairly certain the Yanks need to get MLB’s permission to show the game at Yankee Stadium. The broadcast deals are convoluted that way.
Hypothetically, Nielsen DOES count out-of-home viewing. I don’t think YS is in their sample though. But, to your point, television ratings account for viewing at public venues.
There were 9.4 million people watching game 2. Assuming that YS were at capacity tonight, that would only be 0.5% of the total watching game 2. The error in the measurement is probably much larger than the impact of people watching from the stadium.
The way Nielsen counts their ratings is that people have boxes set up in their homes in certain areas across the country. Each person in the family is assigned a number and when they watch TV they press in the # of whos watching it and it records the show information that they watch and it sends it back to Nielsen. They take the samples from each location to get their numbers. Im sure they do plenty of other things as well to account for other countries but I havent been here (Nielsen) long enough or really wondered enough to ask.
By starting the game three minutes to 8 p.m., baseball can say the games are starting before 8 p.m. and thus more fans can watch.
That’s ridiculous.
“By starting the game three minutes to 8 p.m., baseball can say the games are starting before 8 p.m. and thus more fans can watch.”
That’s the lamest shite I ever heard. Yeah, people don’t know the difference between 7:57 and 8.
As stupid as it is, tests apparently show a difference. Same shit as selling something for $399.99 rather than $400.00.
The money thing I totally get. I’ve read all about the psyche of pricing, but the time thing I do not buy. A 1 hour show starting at 7:57, still ends at 8:57 and if you know your kids need to be in bed at 8, that’s a whole nother hour.
You want to really throw up? Listen to Selig promote that.
what is more ridiculous is knowing that the yanks will bring the audience that they are playing at 4 in Anaheim today just so fox doesnt have it’s monday night lineup pre-empted for a week. they could have played the philly game at 4 and the yanks at 7 or 8 on the west coast or gone with the times like tbs did in the division series where you have the east coast game at 6 and the west coast at 9, that way half of your audience doesnt miss the game because they are at work.
The logic behind the 7:57 start time is hilarious, especially if it actually lures people in.
well…when games “started at 8″, didn’t that actually mean that the pre-game nonsense started at 8 and first pitch wasn’t until more like 8:30 or later?
So, at least this is an improvement over that.
neilsen ratings are really only for the first 6 minutes of the time slot, so maybe by having 1st pitch at 7:57 people are actually tuned in at 8, rather starting the pregame at 8 and first pitch is not until 8:15 at least, thus increasing the ratings to a certain degree.
MLB post season schedules are hilarious. They put La-NY on at 4pm/1pm pac time after a cross country trip and put Philly on at 8 in the cold night weather.
Why wouldnt they flip flop them? Ratings wise and temp/weather wise?
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