Record Low All-Star Ratings: Why No One Cares About Baseball (Still)
Tuesday night’s MLB all-star game garnered the lowest EVER ratings for an MLB all-star game, EVER. The all-star game got a 7.5 rating and a 13 share. That’s down 16% from last year (8.9/15) and down from the previous low of 8.1/14 in 2005.
So who cares? Well, no one, really. That’s the whole point. No one cares about baseball, and even the self-proclaimed “best all star game” isn’t drawing the same fans as years past. Even though baseball is the only sport in the summer it still cant get fans to turn on the TV’s. Back in 1967, when Nielsen first started their TV ratings baseball garnered a 25.6 rating.
In comparison to sports going on in the summer, “The Decision” by Lebron James and his posse got a 9.9 rating (raising 3 million for charity) last Thursday.
So why didn’t anyone watch the all-star game? This should be easy:

- Lebron Hangover: Everyone was still buzzing about Lebron to the Heat and the incredible backlash that ensued from the 1 hour (more like 4 hour ESPN coverage) special that they just simply forgot any sports but basketball and football existed. Solid point,since baseball is about as forgettable as any activity in the world.
- WHOO ?!?!?!: Who the hell are these players in this all-star game? We only knew the names of the players that had been caught doing steroids or had thrown a perfect game this season. OK, there were a lot of perennial all-stars who we’ll never forget, but then the rest of the roster was filled out with guys you’d never heard of.
- For god sakes put Strasburg in the game, Charlie Manuel: This guy has been all the buzz this year, and has pitched lights out in all but one start. Who cares how many games he’s played, he’s ratings gold and more people tune in to his NATIONALS!?!! play than they do for the all-star game.
- “It’s the year of the pitcher”: AKA, after 5 years, the steroids and HGH are starting to make their way out of the game, and the old previous ‘roiders are either getting caught or shrinking in size and power. Fox pushed this as a good thing and pumped up the game tellign everyone how good these no name pitchers were and how they were going to shut down all of our favorite stars. What? No one wants to watch that…
- (Faux) Reality TV: Apparently there was some other stuff going down on TV at the same time that people would rather watch. America’s Got Talent, Wipeout, and the Hills all stole from the All-Star game’s lime light. That’s sad. America’s Got Talent is one of the worst TV shows I’ve ever watched more than 5 minutes of, so that is just pathetic MLB.

- Everyone was attending Steinbrenner’s funeral: The 4 people in the world that praised Steinbrenner up until this week turned into 4 million really fast. Now, he was always my favorite owner along with Mark Cuban (and now the Russian dude with the Nets) but everyone else hated him. I’m glad he finally got his respect, and that may have come at the expense of the young talent in the all-star game.
The bottom line is MLB is becoming irrelevant, fast. They have a huge opportunity on the horizon when both the NFL and the NBA are looking at lockouts for their 2011-2012 seasons.
Though, this probably scares the shit out of MLB that they would have everyone’s attention for them to find out how boring, long, and nap-inducing the regular season of baseball is.
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