LogFAQs > #889327579

TAKEAWAYS:

* College football's going to own this chart for the next decade, and it probably won't be close. Their championship game has always done well, they were mainly being held back by the bottom 1/2 least compelling of the 5 BCS games in the past. Now that it's only 3 games and all of them matter for determining the champ, they're the closest to a Sure Thing you're going to see in sports. Well as long as ESPN doesn't foolishly run both of the Semis on New Year's Eve again... (that was the big drop in 2015)

I still say they need to expand the CFP to 8 teams, but 4 is at least a heck of an improvement over the 2 of the past so they're going to be fine.

* College basketball has two problems. Everyone's crazy about the tourney, but they love it for the buzzbeaters and flipping around between 4 games and the early round upsets (especially when a hated powerhouse is flaming out); by the time we reach the Final Four everyone's bracket is busted and the casual fans have tuned out. The only exception is when there's still a super compelling storyline alive, like Kentucky's undefeated season in 2015.

And the other problem is, the sport is shooting itself in the foot with its new contract that trades the Final Four between CBS and TBS every year. Look how much being on cable hurt 2016 versus 2015 and 2017- it's about as extreme as it gets!

* Baseball's the biggest surprise me to. MLB still does very well in terms of attendance, but the common conception is that these days people are fans of their TEAMS but don't care about the sport overall, so they won't watch the all star game or the playoffs once their favorite is eliminated. Apparently that's a lie, because these World Series numbers are very healthy, and about as consistent as you could get (aside from the high water mark streak-breaker years).

* The NBA is shockingly overrated. Sure it's been topping the World Series for the last 7 years (Cubs win aside), but not by very much, especially not when you consider how pretty much every year the Finals has featured the biggest star in sports, on a team with two other huge stars, going up against what would have been considered an all star team in the pre-Super Team era. Whereas half the time the World Series is won by small market teams filled with third and fourth year players and a few veterans, very few of whom the average fan on the street would be able to name off the top of their head.

I think it's all about that "key demo" of 18 to 45 year olds that advertisers love. The NBA dominates social media and youtube and blogs and podcasts, and young people will turn up to watch the Finals as long as its competitive, but people over 45 haven't cared about the NBA since Jordan's final shot in '98 so there's a pretty firm ceiling on how well any Finals can do.

While on the other hand all those 45 plusers love tuning in to the World Series regardless of who's playing- it's a tradition! Which gives baseball a pretty firm floor it can rely on even when there's no streak being broken to bring in the younger viewers and casual fans. It's an enviable position to be in... for RIGHT NOW... could be a different story going forward though, as those viewers are going to start dying off soon.


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BKSheikah dominated even The Show hosts in 2017, wow!
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