The Ratings For The World Series Are AWFUL. Is There Anything Baseball Can Do?

The ratings for this year's World Series are in, and they are brutal. This is on track to be the least-watched World Series we've seen in a long time. After seeing something of an uptick in 2016, World Series ratings have mainly been down over the last several years. It's extremely disappointing because it seemed like baseball, as a whole, took a lot of steps forward this year with the rule changes and the pace of play, but when it mattered most in the postseason, the average fans just didn't tune in. How can we fix this? 

The sad truth is that baseball has set itself up for failure here. The baseball season is too long in the eyes of many people. This postseason feels like it's been going on forever. Do I mind? No. But I'm not one of the people that baseball is trying to appeal to. I am always going to watch. I don't see a future in which baseball either shortens the postseason or the regular season, but I feel like one of those things will have to happen for more people to watch. Again, I don't mind it, but baseball this late into October and into early November just isn't an appealing thing for most people.

I'm happy for the Diamondbacks, and I'm happy for the Rangers. They've had great seasons. Texas is a big market, but the Rangers had not made the postseason in seven years. They are relative newcomers. They have star players, but I can't say that any of their players are household names amongst average baseball fans.

The bottom line is that the Detroit Tigers just need to get good again so that World Series ratings can go up. OK, I'm kidding, but only kind of. There are certain teams in baseball whose presence in the postseason makes things more interesting. If the Philadelphia Phillies hadn't choked in one of those last two games of the NLCS, World Series ratings would probably be up this year. That was a team that people were connecting with, but they spit it up in the last two games. 

So, for the time being, I don't think there's a whole lot baseball can do. They're not going to shorten the postseason because the owners are making money, and they won't shorten the regular season because the fans will have a fit. It's a bad year for World Series ratings, but in this particular instance, I'm calling it an outlier. We won't get a World Series matchup like this again next year; at least, I hope not.