Has the American Major League Baseball World Series lost its luster?

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   ecogginsposted 10 years ago

   Has the American Major League Baseball World Series lost its luster?
   
   Are as many fans interested in the World Series as before? I am a sports fan; I have been all my life. However, since some playoff games are on cable, I was not even able to watch my favorite team in the League Championships. Since I was unable to watch those games, I lost interest in the games to follow in the World Series.

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   catfish33posted 10 years ago

   Not this year.  Cardinals vs Red Sox.  Two great, hustling teams with great fan bases make for an good series.

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      ecogginsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Thank you for the comment catfish33, you may be right. They are two well-regarded teams.

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   tsmogposted 10 years ago

   The choice of wordage "luster" offers a thought. Does it shine like once before. Reflecting back I can remember when everyone seemed to be near a radio of some kind listening to the games. That may be drifting back to the 70's and 80's or closer. Where the luster is measured from is the question, eh?
   
   The workplace then seemed to offer leniency for listening to the game with a pocket AM radio or one brought from home just for that purpose. The world series carried a holiday atmosphere to it. Today I think it plays out differently receiving tweets and etc with captions, yet I dun'no. It would be interesting to compare and contrast how sports are followed broadly and individualized. Maybe social changes is the key.

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   mfb711posted 10 years ago

   I've been a baseball fan all my life, and I'll continue to be. However, one huge difference between baseball now and when I was growing up in the '60s and '70s, is that baseball has not been the "national pastime" for many years. It's been football for some time now.
   
   More than ever, baseball has become a business. Maybe this was inevitable, but with all of the cable TV and network TV money around, baseball long ago succumbed to the pressure to operate as a major corporation. It's not just a game and probably never was, but long gone are the days when a fan could easily develop a long-term loyalty to a team; unfortunately, with free agency and other means of player mobility,  the traditional definition of "team" as we had known it, no longer exists. Club owners, looking for ways to win quickly, created and perpetuate this problem of paying unimaginable amounts of money to players, so we tend to root more generically, for the team on the field, rather than for specific players who embodied the team.
   
   Baseball has also been highly overexposed. Most fans have cable and can watch not only their local team(s) but out-of-market games almost any time of the day or night. Also, NFL and NCAA football turn into sports-viewing competitors in the fall, just as baseball enters its post-season phase -- when fan interest usually peaks.
   
   Sports seasons have overlapped for many years; it's a fact of the sports fan's life, and it has hurt baseball TV ratings. Soaring ticket prices have practically put an end to going to a ballgame as a family activity (unless one comes from a very rich family).
   
   And there are the drug scandals -- steroids, Human Growth Hormone, and other performance-enhancing drugs have tainted all-time records (e.g.,  Barry Bonds' home run total) for many fans. However, asterisks and fan tantrums cannot erase on-field achievements.
   
   For all these reasons, interest in baseball is nowhere near what it once was. And it will be up to a new commissioner to fix the problems, after King Bud I steps down following the 2014 season. All of this notwithstanding, I'm sure I'll watch at least some of the upcoming World Series games. Been doing it since I was a kid, and old habits are hard to break.

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      ecogginsposted 10 years agoin reply to this

      Excellent post mfb711. The WS does have much more competition these days and the numerous scandals in the past few years has not helped key the flame going in some fan's hearts.

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