MANY (OLDER) PEOPLE WATCHING WORLD SERIES
BULLS OF THE WEEK
It isn’t the classic Big Enchilada of television ratings that would have been produced by a showdown between the two biggest North American media markets, and two of the most storied franchises in the history of sport, the Big Apple’s New York Yankees and Hollywood’s Los Angeles Dodgers, but the 2017 World Series between L.A. and Houston is certainly holding its own for FOX Sports south of the border.
After Game 1 delivered the second best opening game television audience since 2010 (a 3.9 rating and 14.79 million American viewers), Game 2 became the second most-watched second game since 2009 (a 4.2 rating and 15.48 million) and was instantly being bandied about as one of the best games in World Series history.
Heading into the weekend in Houston, people were still talking about the record eight home runs in a World Series game and the record five in extra innings Wednesday night. It was also the first time in 98 games — 90 in a 104-win regular season and eight in the post-season — that the vaunted Dodgers bullpen lost a game in which they were leading going into the ninth inning.
There is no shortage of storylines in a series between the Dodgers — the second richest franchise in Major League Baseball with a Forbes Magazine valuation of US$2.75 billion and the most expensive payroll in all of North American sport at US$265 million — and the Astros, 13th in valuation at US$1.45 billion and 15th in payroll at US$150 million.
The best seems yet to come in this showdown between two of the four largest cities, five largest metropolitan areas and seven leading U.S. television markets (L.A. is No. 2 across the board while Houston is fourth, fifth and seventh, respectively).
In a post-season in which overall TV numbers for MLB are up 14 per cent over last year, with an average of 4.8 million Americans watching each playoff game, the question for baseball is, can they continue to make inroads with younger fans and millennials the way the Toronto Blue Jays have since 2015.? The median age of those watching on TV coming out of the first two games of the World Series: A decidedly baby booming 55.2 years of age.
BEARS OF THE WEEK
Heading into the midway mark of this NFL season, the biggest sport business storyline for fourdown football in Canada continues to be the embarrassment that is DAZN, the video streaming service awarded Canadian rights to the extremely popular Sunday Ticket package of NFL games.
The past two weeks have seen DAZN subcontract Sunday Ticket to leading Canadian cable companies such as Shaw and Rogers after four weeks of erratic service and frustrated subscribers complaining of delays and shaky streaming video and audio.
How the NFL and NFL Canada could have contemplated giving an unproven startup exclusivity to Sunday Ticket remains one of the big “sports biz” question marks of 2017. The rights should have never been bundled together exclusively, especially in a wired country like Canada in which high definition cable consumed on big screens and streaming on tablets and smartphones cater to two very different markets.
The Sport Market on TSN 1040 rates and debates the bulls and bears of sport business. Join Tom Mayenknecht Saturday from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. for a behind-the-scenes look at the sport business stories that matter most to fans. Follow Tom Mayenknecht at: Twitter.com/ TheSportMarket