How Baseball Has Become ESPN's Illegitimate Son

ESPN is celebrating it's 20th year of broadcasting baseball. It's never been more apparent, that it's become the 3rd or 4th fiddle to any other Sport carried by the "World Wide Leader" & it's partially their own fault.

You would think ESPN execs would sell out their own mothers to broadcast a Yankees-Mets game (which would draw huge nationally because of NY especially with Santana pitching). Instead, they'll televised two teams that won't draw nationally what the NY game would. Why? Because on a day the "sister station" ABC runs Game 5 of the NBA Finals, ESPN purposely picked a game they knew less homes would tune into, in order to protect the ratings for ABC & the NBA. The Sunday Night Game between the Cardinals & Indians while intriguing for me to watch, obviously has LESS national appeal then some of the other series being played. I count at least 3 games that would have drawn better numbers than this one. Mets-Yankees, Red Sox-Phillies, & I can make an argument with the Dodgers-Rangers. All huge markets that would draw better nationally than Cards-Tribe. This game was originally an afternoon game when the schedule was out, magically rescheduled. ESPN will of course, have the Mets-Yankees on June 28th as the Sunday Night game. While MLB is somewhat a victim, they also share part of the blame for selling their own game short & not making it more recognizable nationally.

MLB's non-existent marketing scheme leaves them vulnerable to becoming the #3 sport to football & basketball in the near future. They are already losing younger & minority viewers to the NFL & NBA. Meanwhile the NFL had a campaign in order to attract more Spanish viewers with the Futbol Americano spots. ESPN polling showed that among Spanish dominant Hispanics only 32.8% of respondents considered themselves NFL fans and 8.7% called themselves avid NFL fans. Compared to 64.4% of English dominant Hispanics are NFL fans and 34.3% called themselves avid NFL fans. So the NFL went out & marketed the sport to people who technically don't watch the sport. In fact, ESPN Deportes has been broadcasting NFL games in Spanish the last couple of year. Brilliantly done by the best marketed sport in the world...

MLB has no such plan. Consider this...unless you're a fantasy guy or live in LA you don't know who Matt Kemp is. Yet he's one of the elite young talents in the game playing for the 2nd biggest market nationally. If you aren't a baseball fan, you couldn't pick someone like Ian Kinsler out of a lineup, if he had his uniform on. Yovani Gallardo is unrecognizable outside of Milwaukee. Who's Joey Votto? I could go on all day. These players are all less recognizable than someone like Mark Sanchez & likely have less jersey sales than someone like David Lee, but are more impactful players in their sport. They are part of the large influx of young talent baseball has had lately. While I don't personally like Dustin Pedroia, MLB lost a huge opportunity not promoting a 5'5 160 pound player as the AL MVP to young kids. Remember the Chicks Dig the Long Ball campaign? MLB needs something similar. There's no reason players wearing helmets & mask are more recognizable.