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Philadelphia here is regarded as a part of the grater market of the upper east coast, Boston to Washington, where any team qualifies as being a satisfactory participant in the ratings race for the post season (see next paragraph). Compared to, say, Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and the ratings-fatal Montreal. Of course, two of the four were the Yankees and Dodgers, upon whom I concentrated my argument, but Philly and the Bay, not really necessary, just put a lock on the deal. Same applies to the entirety of California, and as long as all games involve teams of interest in those two regions, the networks are happy with the Brinks trucks pulling into their vaults and will keep funneling their ad revenues into MLB. That is not a misrepresentation of the facts, it is merely at odds with the way you choose to define a market, as you clutch at smaller and smaller straws.
Since they started releasing game-by-game viewership numbers in 2001, there have been five series involving the Yankees or the Red Sox. Those five series averaged 21-million viewers watching Game 1. (I counted only game one, because other factors contribute to viewership in subsequent games.) Those were in the top six, along with the Giants-Angels series (aided by both the California market and the Bonds hype). The five series that did not have the Yanks and Sox averaged 15-million. If the Yanks or the Red Sox are in the series, the viewership is 40% higher than if they are not in it.
What you guess I might have said if the Cards were in is no more relevant to the discussion than what you did say when the A's were actually one of the teams anointed, which in your view was perfectly fair. In all fairness to the A's, they (and only they) did play above .500 after Bowie guaranteed them their playoff spot.
I was wondering what sort of tortured semantics you would employ to try and cover your obvious mistake about the "two markets" rather than four. And even your tortured offering fails to account for Oakland....it is somehow or other part of the NY/LA market?
Can't you even own up to a screamingly obvious mistake on your part?
Your post was preposterously transparent.
You goofed with your "two markets" post and the attempt to cover it up with such a lame explanation suggests that you are a goof.
Divisional play by itself imposes penalties, which cannot be counterbalanced by any finagling with the playoffs.
Here's my radically facetious idea. Let's abolish divisional play and the playoffs. Starting in April, we could have each team play every other team in the league the same number of games at home and away. The winningest team in each league would advance to the World Series. I wonder if this has ever been tried.
Here's my radically facetious idea. Let's abolish divisional play and the playoffs. Starting in April, we could have each team play every other team in the league the same number of games at home and away. The winningest team in each league would advance to the World Series. I wonder if this has ever been tried.
What seems to be the obvious reason the system you describe was abandoned is that playoffs generate big television audiences and big income, so the honchos wanted more playoffs. However, there are reasons that expanded playoffs appeal to fans as well. One reason is that people enjoy watching tight playoff series. Another is that the number of clubs now in MLB makes it so there would be a lot of teams that would go years with nearly zero chance of making the postseason if there were only two teams playing past the regular season each year. There is something to be said for the fact that fans in Milwaukee or Denver, for example, get a chance to see their team in the playoffs. In the case of Denver, they got to see their team get hot at the right time and make it to the World Series.
The situation with the Rockies in '07 also makes clear a problem with having too many teams in the postseason: too many teams that may not deserve to be there, and may knock off better teams in the early rounds, depriving the fans of better match-ups later on. On the plus side, Rockies fans got to enjoy seeing their team in the Series, something they would not have had the chance to see if the World Series had been all there was to the postseason, most likely not even under the system of 1969-93 with four teams in the playoffs. On the other hand, something like a Phillies-Red Sox match-up would have been more likely if the Rockies had not slipped into the last playoff spot and gotten hot at the right time, and maybe an encounter between those two eastern division clubs would have made for a more exciting World Series than the rubber-stamping of the Sox as the best team of the season when they faced off against the Rockies, who were lucky even to be there.
It's a tricky balance between having enough teams in the playoffs so two thirds of clubs are not perpetually shut out of the postseason, and having few enough teams invited to the dance so that there's some sense that they all deserve to be there to at least some degree. I'm concerned that adding two more teams will push very firmly into the territory where there are teams in the postseason who clearly don't deserve to be there, and in any case, that any round between even a few teams which is decided by single-game match-ups is nowhere near being a legitimate test of who deserves to advance.
The simple mathematical expansion of the overall population base and talent pool make the old 16-team structure no longer capable of fulfilling the need. There are at least 25 cities that have grown large enough to support and deserve a local team, and enough talent to supply 750 MLB-level players. So it is just unfeasible to try to operate with only 16 teams. With twice that many, and only two teams advancing to playoffs, way too many teams would be out of the running too early in the season.
So it makes sense to have at least four teams eligible to go to the playoffs. When America's population doubles again (as it has since 1950 and probably will again by 2050)), there will be a strong justification for more than 50 MLB teams. It's the nature of the cherished concept of "growth" and "bigger", that modern man is so fond of using as the only measure of a quality of life.
Here's my radically facetious idea. Let's abolish divisional play and the playoffs. Starting in April, we could have each team play every other team in the league the same number of games at home and away. The winningest team in each league would advance to the World Series. I wonder if this has ever been tried.
What if two teams had the same record from the same league and split there own matchup?
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