Medium Well: Bad NFL game = ALCS Game 7 - Sports media blog by The Baltimore Sun's Ray Frager

« ALCS, NFL and a little UM | Main | More on Game 7 vs. NFL »

Bad NFL game = ALCS Game 7

That equation is what applies to Baltimore. Last night's Game 7 of the ALCS, a tautly played, compelling contest, drew 8.6 percent of our market's audience, almost exactly the same (8.5) as the Sunday night NFL game between the Buccaneers and Seahawks, which was far less competititive and just a regular-season game to boot.

Yes, the baseball game was on a cable channel and the NFL game was on a broadcast channel, but the number of homes here without access to TBS is probably only about 10 percent. I don't understand. Are we all so bored by baseball and so enamored of football that these two received equal weight? Were we hopped up about the chance to watch NBC's game when John Madden had the night off? Was it a form of protest against the Red Sox?

Or is it my fault? People want nothing to do with a team containing the name Ray.

Posted by Ray Frager at 2:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Comments

Part of the problem is that I watch NBC regularly and I never watch TBS. I wanted to watch the baseball game last night, and I did, but I had to really search for it.

Posted by: Jeff Smith | October 20, 2008 4:01 PM

I wanted to watch the baseball game, but I didn't know what the hell channel it was on! I thought it was on Fox. Too lazy to channel surf among 300 stations.

Posted by: BobbyWoontz | October 20, 2008 4:03 PM

one word: gambling.

Posted by: kvnmnnng | October 20, 2008 11:29 PM

I was really into the baseball game. After the Boston comeback in Game 5, I had to watch the rest of this series. And I love Game 7's. I don't care if it is NHL, MLB or NBA, the drama that comes with a Game 7 is always great. I didn't even turn to the football game til 11 PM. And at that point there were so many empty seats at Raymond James... I don't blame the fans at all! They probably went home to catch the end of the baseball game. Great blog, Ray, keep it up.

Posted by: Will Law | October 21, 2008 11:01 PM

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)

Please enter the letter "q" in the field below:

About Ray Frager

Ray Frager joined The Baltimore Sun’s sports department in 1985 and has been an assistant sports editor for more than 15 years. This is his second stint writing a sports media column for The Baltimore Sun. Most sequels aren't as good as the original, but then, the original wasn't all that great either.

Frager, born in 1957, grew up in northern Delaware (graduating from a high school that since has shut down) and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Rider College in Lawrenceville, N.J. He worked as a reporter and copy editor at The Trenton Times and The Dallas Morning News before coming to Baltimore.

Surprisingly, if you look at his accompanying photo, Frager is married and has a son and daughter. He enjoys playing basketball and has organized pickup games among members of The Baltimore Sun staff for many years, which means they don't get too mad at him for shooting way too much.

He has a good beat and is easy to dance to. I'd give him an 85.