Let’s face it: The Rangers-Toronto Blue Jays ALDS has been taxing on Rangers fans’ souls, not to mention their eyes and ears.
Now comes Wednesday’s decisive Game 5 with a 3 p.m. start on Fox Sports 1, a network that likely was nothing more than a rumor to most Dallas-Fort Worth viewers until the Rangers postseason.
For Rangers fans, that’s not exactly prime time on prime real estate. It’s not even within shouting distance.
Special thanks to Major League Baseball and Fox Sports 1, who decided the Houston Astros-Kansas City Royals is more worthy of prime time. That series-clinching meeting starts on FS1 at a more respectable 7 p.m.
Why that decision? Well, Houston and Kansas City are two U.S. markets metered for ratings. Toronto might as well be Siberia when it comes to American eyeballs.
What’s a prime-time start worth to Rangers fans? Well, more of them can watch from the comfort of their homes. Consider this: On Sunday, the Rangers-Blue Jays played their only prime-time game of the series. The game scored a 12.2 rating in Dallas-Fort Worth, which translates into about 323,000 homes. The three afternoon starts are averaging about a 6.0 rating, which is about 159,000 homes.
Monday’s Game 4 was supposed to start on FS1 at 3 p.m. But the Astros-Royals ran long, pushing the Rangers-Blue Jays to MLB Network for more than an hour. Why is that a kick in the pants?
Consider this law of diminishing returns: During the regular season the Rangers play on Fox Sports Southwest, which reaches about 2 million of the 2.64 million homes with televisions in Dallas-Fort Worth. Fox Sports 1 hits about 1.8 million. MLB Network reaches about 1.5 million.
That means 300,000 homes had to pick up the game in progress while 40 percent of the entire market was completely shut out. Remember the Cowboys’ playoff games last season? Remember how they were played on over-the-air, Fox-owned KDFW (Channel 4), which reaches 100 percent of homes?
The lowest-rated game of this series? Friday’s Game 2, exclusively on MLB Network, scored a 5.4 in D-FW. That’s lower than some regular-season games.
It’s not rocket science. It’s selling a sport. Baseball loses.
To read more visit the Dallas Morning News where this story was originally published