Getting Tired of the Sox/Yankees
 

It's really getting old. Nobody gave half a shit about them 3 years ago (unless you lived in Boston or New York), so why do we have so many nationally televised Sox/Yankees games this season, both opening and closing the season??? I live in what used to be Reds land (Lexington), but looking around campus (UK) today I saw more Red Sox and Yankees caps than Reds hats. The only team apparel that outnumbered either was UK, and the Bengals won big yesterday. Sportscasters are now referring to it as the greatest rivalry in sports. I think it's just a device that is being used to get an audience.

Give that man a prize!

Anything you hear a sports commentator say on a wholly sports oriented network is a device for getting an audience. Did the commentators ever wonder whether WWF was staged? Do football commentators ever say, "You know what, this game is really dull."? No, because they are paid by the network, who are in league with the sport, all of which is funded by ticket and t-shirt sales, tv advertisments (ever notice how American Football is the only sport in the world that has ad breaks built into its rules??) and other promotions - the whole machine is there in order to generate an audience and to then extract as much cash as possible from it.

Aside: It took me a couple of reads to get through the shorthand. Confusing (to me) since I'm originally from Lexington (Massachusetts), and I thought the 'Reds' reference was to Red Sox, one of the only two teams in the post to that point. Then, I thought UK was the United Kingdom.

/wanders off in a daze to another thread...

What'cha mean nobody gave a shit about 'em until 3 years ago?? It has always been a huge rivalry. Is it the biggest in sport?? Probably not, but it's one of the top 5 I'd say.

I'm very, very tired of "East Coast bias". I used to think it was just people whining, but it's true. Most of the sports reporting culture in the US (just by virtue of ESPN being in Bristol, CN even) is located in the Eastern Time Zone. If you listen to most national sports radio shows, sports TV shows, etc. you get far, far more information on the East Coast teams. It's getting old, fast.

One acronym...YESPNESN

As an Orioles' fan, it was pissing me off earlier in the year when the Orioles were in first place for two full months, and the entire time the media response was:

"Can the Red Sox find an ace?"
"Can the Yankees find a rotation?"

Instead of, "Can the Orioles take advantage of the Yankess/Sox struggles and win this year?"

I can't even IMAGINE what it must be for the Blue Jays' fans.

I'm a Boston fan, also I live in Mass. and I like the feud. It goes back years. I also like the tension at fenway park. Boston/Yankee fans are nuts!

I think the majority of the ones that are sick of it, don't live in New York or Boston and are not fans.

It's been pure hell, djtestudo. Pure, fiery hell.

In other words, 275 million people :D

It's ok guys ...... in October at the end of game 7 we'll all be hearing

"THE INDIANS WIN THE SERIES....... THE INDIANS WIN THE SERIES....... THE INDIANS WIN THE SERIES!!!!!!!!!!!!"

BTW.... When the Yanks or Sox can beat 455 and sellout the stadiums in nearby cities, and be the #1 selling apparel (well that's impossible for them not to in most years), AND have their televised games as the #1 primetime show in their area..... CLEVELAND did all that in the 90's and early '00's and are on their way to doing it again.


THEN and only then will I believe in the Sox and Yankee mystique..... until then they are lucky enough to play in areas of high corporate headquarters (tax write-off entertainment business), higher populations therefore they can have a bigger fanbase, and a press that loves them and treats them like kings.

I can tell you one thing; they sell out here in Baltimore.

It's actually cheaper in most cases to drive/fly Southwest down from Boston in particular, pay for the hotel and buy tickets to the game then it is to simply go to a game at Fenway (New York as well).

I don't mind it so much right now, but I can't stand it 3 games into it with people saying "Oh my god, what's Steinbrenner going to do, they just dropped 2 games and are now 1-2." It's really annoying hearing how the season's in jeopardy that early.

That's true, unless you consider baseball and basketball sports.

Or hockey, for that matter. I think almost any televised sport has some kind of break for commercials, unless it's something that's not really able to stop such as NASCAR or golf. (Yes, I know some people say those aren't "sports" but they're close enough)

Actually, only basketball has the breaks built in (through the "official's timeouts"). Football's quarters, halves, and two-minute warnings have nothing to do with commercials. Neither do baseball's innings or hockey's periods (although I don't know the rules of hockey that well, so there might be something I haven't noticed).

I'm not a big baseball fan. watch playoffs sometimes. But i watch the yankees and red sox every chance i get. best rivalry in sports and almost ALWAYS, great games.

Next time you're at an NFL game, look for a guy down on the sideline wearing huge orange gloves. He'll be on the home side. He's an official, and he dictates when you can take a commercial break during regulation time. Football has this rule written in because NFL games constitute no more than 15 hours of television a week, yet all of the games are televised. Every game draws a gigantic audience (regular season games many times draw as many viewers as most other sports' playoff games.) Therefore, for the NFL and the networks to generate as much ad revenue as these other sports, they need to be more concerned with the television slice of the pie, soley due to the density of the schedule.

As far as I know the two minute warning was introduced purerly for advertising purposes not because of the "Hay guys there's two minutes left in the half" thing.

This would explain why college football doesn't have it.

EDIT: For the last three seasons Red Sox/Yanks have been the premier matchup in the AL, it's only fair that it gets hyped to hell. Remember the Niners/Cowboys playoff games all those years ago?

It is one of the best rivalies in all of sports. They are promoting big time; because they want good ratings for ad revenues.

I think that this is an example of why the NFL is such a good buisiness model as far as professional sports go. The MLB has to do this rivalry thing if for nothing else than to get good ratings. Most guys I know watch 4 football games every week (Sunday @ 1 and 4. Sun night, MNF), but at most will only watch all of the televised evening games for their team. I also am a strong believer in one or three game playoff series. Seven games is too long and takes too much of a commitment to watch all of them (and therefore sells less advertising). This is why you have to pay millions for a Super Bowl ad. This is why the NFL can successfully expand worldwide with a sport that isn't very popular already in other countries (football is by far most popular in America, while baseball is very popular in Japan as well as many Carribean countries). I love the sport of baseball, I just think that the MLB isn't doing a very good job with it.

A couple points.

1) Baseball doesn't do one- or three-game series because it is very bad for competition. Over seven games especially, the best team almost always will come out ahead. The NBA model is one you SHOULD be complaining about, where there is a minimum of one day between every game, so the playoffs can last more than a month and a half.

2) More games can mean more money. A Super Bowl ad may be $2.5 million, and a World Series ad $200,000. However, there are at minimum 17 breaks in a baseball game, while football can be as few as six (although with the possibility of far more with time-outs, change-of-possession, etc., so probably more like 20-25). With those numbers, it does seem MLB makes far fewer amounts of money. However, more people will watch the further a series goes, so prices go up. So, a seven-game championship series can likely make more money then a Super Bowl.

djtestudo, as a somewhat expert on baseball (I think ;) ) could you explain to me why theres only a 5 game series in the DL? I think it skews a lot of matchups and tends to produce lopsided results, if a team is down 0-2 in the DL they face a very uphill task, but in a best of 7 they could split the next two and live another day.

Anyway, is there a concrete reason why the DL is only 5 games? Is it due to time issues? Or just tradition?

1 evil team down, 1 to go......boston lost 5-3 to chicago :)

I think it's time, because you don't want to draw the playoffs out TOO far. The LCS used to be five until sometime in the mid-eighties, when they changed to seven. I agree that seven provides a better judge of two teams.

Personally, I would go seven in every series.

To the original poster I think you're totally wrong. People have been following the Yanks Sox rivaly for the last century, however when one or both teams are doing terribly people stop paying attention for a season. Lately though both the Sox and the Yanks have been making it to the playoffs and therefor have gotten more attention than normal. I mean last year the Sox broke the infamous curse of the bambino, of coarse this is going to get a lot of coverage. The breaking of the curse has sparked a new interest in the rivalry however.

I'd rather see MLB cut the regular season by 10 games and make the opening round a seven game set. I'm sure folks in Kansas City and Baltimore would sleep much better knowing that they will only have to suffer through 152 games rather than the current 162. :D

Don't you mean Kansas City and Detroit? ;)

Hey man, that's not cool...:p

You're just upset you only ended up 10-8 against us, and so couldn't beat out the Yankees ;)

...and as of last night, tspikes51's wishes come true.

GO WHITE SOX AND HOUSTON!!!!!!!!!

To bad so sad NY Skankees and Blosux.

Enjoy it while you can cause CLEVELAND AND CINCY are gonna rock the baseball world next year.

of the nine largest media markets, five are in states that touch the atlantic ocean (i'm fudging and counting DC in this group cuz it'd qualify if it was in VA/MD). four of those 5 are in the northeast and atlanta is 9th. in fact, NY and Boston account for almost 9% of TV homes in America (accd'ing to Nielsen website, fwiw). if both teams are good (and since they tied with ANA for 2nd best record in the AL i'd say they were) then you'll here about 'em.