This month saw a lot of stories about TV ratings. First, there was a series of stories about the “Caitlin Clark effect” — a surge in ratings for Iowa games as she chased the scoring record. Then came the annual check-in on the Super Bowl’s ratings (it reached record highs, in case you were nervous). After that was a batch of stories about whether the NBA needs to improve All-Star weekend after a boring game drew great TV numbers. And now the Yankees are making their pitch to extend Juan Soto by pointing to his effect on ratings for spring training games.
This sort of thing happens every February, which is a slow sports month, and it always gets me thinking: How much should fans care about a sport’s overall popularity?
On the one hand, more fans are usually better. It means more attention and more excitement. Sure, the casuals can be annoying, but it’s fun to see people who don’t obsess about sports getting into a playoff run or a pennant race. And for players, of course, it means more money: Not long after the stories about the Super Bowl ratings came the news that the NFL salary cap was increasing by a record amount.
So it seems like I should root for the popularity of my sport…. but I can’t help but feel that this coverage, which treats increasing TV ratings as self-evidently good, is designed to get me rooting for the owners’ pocketbooks. Because obviously that’s the most direct effect of these numbers: more money for owners. Some of that does trickle down to players, but never-ending pursuit of more fans is like most capitalist celebrations of endless growth. It inevitably harms the product, potentially the players, and even the world. The pursuit of TV ratings is ultimately why the NFL plays on Thursday and added a 17th game, why MLB.tv blacks out in-market games, and why the NBA won’t let players criticize China.
Yes, it’s good that players see a cut of this increased revenue, but it’s not always worth the tradeoff. The simplest and best way to pay players more is to just take it from the owners… Anyway, here’s everything from Undrafted this month:
The more I see about this NIL regime the more I don’t care for it…
A comparison of the upcoming election and the Super Bowl… in retrospect I’m not sure this piece totally made sense.
I love writing about conspiracy theories. I which we had better ones…