OT:Say goodbye to Pats talk for the next couple weeks

[Deus Irae]

Nothing really surprising, if he goes. He'll have gotten a chance to turn around the two longest suffering franchises in the sport.

 

[Rob0729]

I follow all the Boston teams, but you are right, baseball is screwed up. How MLB expects to cultivate new fans in a city like Pittsburgh or KC is beyond me. One thing that I really like about the NFL is that it is a level playing field in terms of finances. You can't simply outspend the other teams by a factor of 3 or 4.

The fact of the matter is that MLB is turning into a regional sport much like the NHL is. I read that the ratings for game 1 of the ALCS is down 62% from last year because you have two small market teams playing this year. You wouldn't see that kind of drop of in the divisional round or championship round of the NFL playoffs if say Buffalo was playing Jacksonville. Basically, outside of NY, Boston, Chicago, LA, and a handful of other cities; MLB is second or third in popularity and sometimes by a wide margin.

 

[JackBauer]

Interesting postmortem in the Globe today: Boston Red Sox - Red Sox unity, dedication dissolved during epic late-season collapse - The Boston Globe

Thin sourcing, but sure doesn't paint Lester, Beckett, and Lackey in a good light.

 

[patchick]

you can finally say that this is not definitely a Red Sox town anymore

As reasonable as it may seem to think so, I really don't think that's true. The Red Sox still have a powerful hold on this region's psyche and sports identity.

I look around when I pick up kids from school and activities, and kids in Red Sox shirts always outnumber Pats, Celtics and Bruins combined. I've also noticed there are always a couple of Red Sox-themed jack o'lanterns in our neighborhood at Halloween, and even Red Sox kippot at Rosh Hashanah services -- things I've never seen for the other teams. And stores wouldn't keep offering such vast arrays Red Sox gear if it didn't sell.

But...so what? This is a HUGE sports town, and the Patriots get plenty of love. Even the supposed lack of Patriots talk and coverage is only relative to the Red Sox. You actually get a ton more football coverage here than in many other NFL markets.

 

[Bobs My Uncle]

maybe .. maybe not

I think the actual football posts, that routinely get tossed out because they aren't Pats specific, are much more relevant to this forum than some obscure baseball thread.

Aren't there forums for baseball talk somewhere?

 

[DaBruinz]

Cubs just signed Theo

Considering that Epstein is still under contract to the Red Sox, it's not possible for him to be signed by the Cubs.

What has happened is that Epstein and the Cubs have come to an agreement on what his job would be IF the Sox and Cubs can come to an agreement on compensation. Until that happens, Epstein is part of the Red Sox.

 

[DaBruinz]

The sad thing is you can finally say that this is not definitely a Red Sox town anymore and yet, the radio stations talk far more about them. The Sox popularity is at a decades long low. Their TV ratings are in the toilet. Even though the Sox deny it, there are a lot of games that aren't sellouts (at least a lot of people who have tickets don't go). People seemed apathetic about the team until they totally collapsed and Tito was fired (oh, um.... quit) and now Theo is gone.

The Pats popularity is at a high even after the lockout and at the very least about equally as popular as the Sox now. The Bruins and Celts have syphoned off some of the Sox's popularity too. Yet, for the last few weeks, it is baseball all the time. This is easy to explain because talk show hosts are lazy and it is far easier to generate four hours of people rehashing the same issues of a major controversy than generate talk about a football team that is 4-1.

Tito's contract wasn't renewed. That is neither being fired nor quitting..

 

[Rob0729]

As reasonable as it may seem to think so, I really don't think that's true. The Red Sox still have a powerful hold on this region's psyche and sports identity.

I look around when I pick up kids from school and activities, and kids in Red Sox shirts always outnumber Pats, Celtics and Bruins combined. I've also noticed there are always a couple of Red Sox-themed jack o'lanterns in our neighborhood at Halloween, and even Red Sox kippot at Rosh Hashanah services -- things I've never seen for the other teams. And stores wouldn't keep offering such vast arrays Red Sox gear if it didn't sell.

But...so what? This is a HUGE sports town, and the Patriots get plenty of love. Even the supposed lack of Patriots talk and coverage is only relative to the Red Sox. You actually get a ton more football coverage here than in many other NFL markets.

I would counter TV ratings of a meaningless Patriots preseason game vs. Sox/Yankees where the Pats won.

I can't find it now, but the Pats sell more licensed merchandise than the Red Sox on an annual basis. Granted that is national figures, not just this region.

The last few years, there has been a growing Red Sox apathy. People just don't really care about the Sox like the like to and the TV ratings. In 2010, They had their lowest television ratings since 2003 which was a 36% drop in the rating and radio ratings were down 16.5%:

Ratings for Red Sox games on NESN over the season's first half had the Sox in fifth place, down almost 36 percent from their first-place perch last year, according to an analysis of Nielsen Media Research by the Sports Business Journal.

Ratings for Red Sox games broadcast on WEEI-AM were down 16.5 percent, to 107,500 listeners, reported the Boston Globe.

Larry Lucchino Unfazed by Dip in Red Sox TV, Radio Ratings

The ratings rebounded this year after all the off season spending, but only by 20-25% of last year's numbers which still puts it about 60-70% lower than 2009.

 

[Rob0729]

Tito's contract wasn't renewed. That is neither being fired nor quitting..

Well, I am wrong there. But he probably would have been fired if he was under contract.

 

[Tunescribe]

Why anyone watches MLB anymore is beyond me.

That business model is so screwed up and the inmates run the asylum.

Baseball fans in this era are simply Masochists.

MLB is a poorly administered, tradition-stymied anachronism. The Bankofamericasox generate more chatter when things go wrong than when they go right, symptomatic of Boston's deeply rooted masochistic mindset. It's purely a hardcore Boston "thing" and not nearly as significant outside the Route 95 hub. It also is slowly eroding as each new generation of fans turns from baseball's stodgy ways toward action-oriented/team-focused sports such as football and hockey.

 

[shmessy]

MLB is a poorly administered, tradition-stymied anachronism. The Bankofamericasox generate more chatter when things go wrong than when they go right, symptomatic of Boston's deeply rooted masochistic mindset. It's purely a hardcore Boston "thing" and not nearly as significant outside the Route 95 hub. It also is slowly eroding as each new generation of fans turns from baseball's stodgy ways toward action-oriented/team-focused sports such as football and hockey.

I would say precisely the OPPOSITE.

MLB is dying because it has TURNED IT'S BACK on tradition at a time when the NFL is EMBRACING it's tradition.

The last few years have seen regular season interleague play, All Star games that decide home field for the World Series, Free Agency without the limits of a real salary cap, a steroids policy that is almost unchecked and - - by far the worst - - playoff and world series games that start and end far too late for young fans to watch.

The NFL has spent millions on embracing Ed and Steve Sabol's NFL Films, kept the vast majority of its regular season games during the day and kept all playoff night games on the Weekends. There is a much tougher steroids policy, ridiculous contracts are not guaranteed and players are required to perform for their money.

The most potentially disastrous idea for the NFL is the one that goes against it's tradition. Namely, the 18-game regular season idea. The 16 game change in the 70's was bad enough. 18 games would only be holding onto MLB ankles as it falls down its hole.

In sum, MLB lost because it was NOT "tradition-stymied" enough. The NFL won because it has embraced it's tradition.

 

[goheels22002]

My most hated baseball teams:

1. New York Yankees
2. Boston Red Sox

I think you can make that most hated teams in all of sports. Once you get past rivalries, everywhere you go outside the Northeast US, people just despise the spending and the arrogance. Baseball needs a hard salary cap and no guaranteed contracts.

 

[Tunescribe]

I would say precisely the OPPOSITE.

MLB is dying because it has TURNED IT'S BACK on tradition at a time when the NFL is EMBRACING it's tradition.

The last few years have seen regular season interleague play, All Star games that decide home field for the World Series, Free Agency without the limits of a real salary cap, a steroids policy that is almost unchecked and - - by far the worst - - playoff and world series games that start and end far too late for young fans to watch.

The NFL has spent millions on embracing Ed and Steve Sabol's NFL Films, kept the vast majority of its regular season games during the day and kept all playoff night games on the Weekends. There is a much tougher steroids policy, ridiculous contracts are not guaranteed and players are required to perform for their money.

The most potentially disastrous idea for the NFL is the one that goes against it's tradition. Namely, the 18-game regular season idea. The 16 game change in the 70's was bad enough. 18 games would only be holding onto MLB ankles as it falls down its hole.

In sum, MLB lost because it was NOT "tradition-stymied" enough. The NFL won because it has embraced it's tradition.

I understand your perspective here, but didn't MLB institute those changes to address lagging interest? That's why I believe time has passed by the game itself, which simply is too slow. The last Bankofamericasox game I attended was a playoff game, and so dull that people spent much of their time chatting with each other, texting, talking on their cell phones, etc. It seemed more social event than sporting event. What happens on the field seldom is so compelling that it commands undivided attention. I think one major improvement would be enforcement of the between-pitch time limit.

I'm in full agreement with you about the NFL and Goodell's dangerous tinkering in the name of growth and "progress."

 

[alamo]

Every time I see an anti-Sox thread here I ask myself: Why do many NFL fans have such an inferiority complex that they feel the need to dump on MLB?

It's not just here, Florio does the same when he posts his giddy ratings reports about football beating baseball.

This isn't news. Football is more TV-friendly, and more accepted by an increasingly short-attention-span populace. The shift happened a long time ago. Times change. Who cares, if you're a baseball fan?

Why anyone watches MLB anymore is beyond me.

That business model is so screwed up and the inmates run the asylum

Yep, the first thing I always ask myself when deciding what sports to watch is: what's the business model?

Some day in the future, when Kraft no longer owns the Pats and someone much less savvy than Belichick runs them, will you change your allegiance to another team? Or to another sport?

No, I would hope not. For most, once a fan always a fan to at least a degree. Which is why many people still love MLB. And want to listen to news and talk about it.

 

[fnordcircle]

In 2003 the Patriots signed Ted Washington after an embarrassingly bad Run D killed us throughout 2002 (started with LdT embarrassing us early in the season, IIRC).

So what was the big story in the papers that day? Was it that the only local team (at that time) to have won a championship in a decade had signed THE best runstopping defensive lineman in the NFL?

No. It was about how Manny Ramirez played golf instead of going to the doctor.

Sox fans and sports radio love to kvetch about this or that. It's all about creating negative storylines. They lack the creativity to turn Ted Washington's signing into anything more than 'this should help'. But those morons can pontificate for decades about someone skipping rehab.

 

[Tunescribe]

Every time I see an anti-Sox thread here I ask myself: Why do many NFL fans have such an inferiority complex that they feel the need to dump on MLB?

It's not just here, Florio does the same when he posts his giddy ratings reports about football beating baseball.

This isn't news. Football is more TV-friendly, and more accepted by an increasingly short-attention-span populace. The shift happened a long time ago. Times change. Who cares, if you're a baseball fan?



Yep, the first thing I always ask myself when deciding what sports to watch is: what's the business model?

Some day in the future, when Kraft no longer owns the Pats and someone much less savvy than Belichick runs them, will you change your allegiance to another team? Or to another sport?

No, I would hope not. For most, once a fan always a fan to at least a degree. Which is why many people still love MLB. And want to listen to news and talk about it.

Why do you consign such discussions to an "inferiority complex," of all things? That's just insulting. Most of the observations here are quite logical, drawn from the fact that MLB talk is a soap opera-like annoyance on local radio in the midst of football season.

Also, I doubt the Patriots will have new ownership in our lifetimes. Jonathan Kraft is poised to run things for the next 30-plus years, at least.

 

[Deus Irae]

Why do you consign such discussions to an "inferiority complex," of all things? That's just insulting. Most of the observations here are quite logical, drawn from the fact that MLB talk is a soap opera-like annoyance on local radio in the midst of football season.

Also, I doubt the Patriots will have new ownership in our lifetimes. Jonathan Kraft is poised to run things for the next 30-plus years, at least.

Since the bolded part is your opinion, and not actually fact, you're helping Alamo make his point.

 

[E1Downey]

I understand your perspective here, but didn't MLB institute those changes to address lagging interest? That's why I believe time has passed by the game itself, which simply is too slow. The last Bankofamericasox game I attended was a playoff game, and so dull that people spent much of their time chatting with each other, texting, talking on their cell phones, etc. It seemed more social event than sporting event. What happens on the field seldom is so compelling that it commands undivided attention. I think one major improvement would be enforcement of the between-pitch time limit.

I'm in full agreement with you about the NFL and Goodell's dangerous tinkering in the name of growth and "progress."

Sad sight to see isn't it tune?

 

[E1Downey]

Why do you consign such discussions to an "inferiority complex," of all things? That's just insulting. Most of the observations here are quite logical, drawn from the fact that MLB talk is a soap opera-like annoyance on local radio in the midst of football season.

Also, I doubt the Patriots will have new ownership in our lifetimes. Jonathan Kraft is poised to run things for the next 30-plus years, at least.

Let's not argue guys. Here's one thing we can all agree on. The fan base with the most severe inferiority complex is none other than those Ny fans....you know, the ones wearing green!

 

[Tunescribe]

Sad sight to see isn't it tune?

No, it's very understandable at baseball games. A matter of maintaining sanity if you ask me.

Since the bolded part is your opinion, and not actually fact, you're helping Alamo make his point.

When you're annoyed by something, it's a fact you're annoyed. Right? The OP and others here including yours truly are on the record about that.