If You Show The Games, They Will Come

No surprise here that the NCAA Tournament Championship game suffered a 30% drop in the audience compared with last year and more than 10% less than the 2016 game. Just like with its baseball package, Turner Sports keeps forgetting that people don't know to look to them.

After four months of seemingly thousands of college basketball telecasts on numerous local stations along with regional and national networks, Turner Sports does not have any sort of package, even with a weaker conference, but expects millions of casual fans to somehow know that they had the Final Four this season.

While TBS, TNT, and TRU aired regional games, the casual fans could find telecasts on CBS at the same time.

Granted, it's hard to completely fault Turner Sports. You would think that for the many millions of dollars they pay to the NCAA just for the Tournament package they share with CBS that they would be entitled to some degree of a regular season presence.

Speaking being entitled, baseball fans are entitled to have their local teams available via their regular TV outlet for games which Facebook streams around the country each Wednesday afternoon this season. We understand that Facebook spent millions of dollars with MLB for this package, which includes MLB itself producing each telecast and providing the announcers and staff.

However, MLB and Facebook need to understand that most fans are paying more for their respective cable/satellite package every month because of the presence of these regional sports networks which air the games. This past Wednesday (4/4), the complete exclusivity that Facebook has prevented the Mets from airing on SNY and the Phillies from airing on NBC Sports Philadelphia.

That meant two large markets having no direct local telecast. With many of the fans at work and unable to watch a stream, they were deprived of a chance to see their local team. Those NYC and Phillies fans that were able to watch the stream of the game may have preferred something other than a phone or other small screen.

It would have been interesting to be able to compare local team viewership between the regular telecast ratings and how many more picked up the telecast on Facebook given both options.

Instead, it wasn't until the morning of the game before SNY showed alerts that it could not show this game. The NBC Sports Philadelphia web site had a blank spot on their schedule that morning, showing their schedule before 1:00 and nothing until after 4:30 for the afternoon.

Because of the fan backlash, teams which have upcoming Wednesday afternoon Facebook telecasts are now taking the lead and alerting their fans early that the games will not be shown locally. The impact is even larger throughout Canada where many of the Blue Jays games are shown regionally or nationally via SportsNet. The network has put out social media alerts telling fans that the scheduled Blue Jays streams on Facebook on April 18th and May 24th will not be available for telecasts, but will be airing on the SportsNet Radio Network.

Facebook did report rougly 4,300,000 views "of at least three seconds" of the Phillies vs. Mets stream with 1,200,000 "reactions" on the platform. One good thing for those watching is that, at least this time, there were no actual commercials, with between innings filled with game related content. Next Wednesday (4/11) it will be the Brewers vs. Cardinals, with the Blue Jays vs. Royals on April 18th.




Sorry, but we should all click on the "dislike" button unless they keep local team telecasts.


BALTIMORE/WASHINGTON D.C.: Baseball fans throughout the region that can't afford cable/satellite and/or have already cut the cord can forget about seeing either the Orioles or Nationals this entire season. MASN, in separate statements, clarified that MASN and MASN2 will be the "exclusive" channels for each team's games throughout the season. None of their games will appear on a local over the air channel, other than any of the few Saturdays when Fox Sports airs one of the teams on a regional basis.


SAN DIEGO: Still no word as of press time regarding the fate of Padres broadcasts on 97.3 even though the Padres' first home stand of the young season just concluded. Kevin Klein, hired as morning man and taken off the air following his controversial "Jump" social media campaign which completely backfired.

Klein has still not gone on the air (as of press time) for the morning show, yet has yet to be terminated from the station. The possibility still remains that the Padres will attempt to revoke the contract with the rock music station and quickly move to another local radio station.

CHICAGO: Former Cubs outfielder and ESPN analyst Doug Glanville has joined NBC Sports Chicago. Although not an actual part of the network's pre and post-game programming, he is already a part of other Cubs related programming along with providing web site content about the team.

ALBANY: Although the local Mets radio affiliate changed starting this season (as we reported a couple weeks ago), the local Red Sox affiliate stays in tact. Fox Sports 980 has extended its affiliate contract through the 2020 season. The station has aired the games since the start of the 2012 season.