Major League Baseball opened this year by kneeling for the anthem and standing for Black Lives Matter. Though, despite the apparent belief that our sports-starved nation’s hunger for baseball would outweigh the league’s social justice activism, the ratings have been in the basement.
According to the numbers, baseball has joined the NBA in struggling to get sports fans to tune in and watch games.
Sunday, baseball’s flagship primetime night, has been particularly bad. As Sports Media Watch reports, last Weekend’s edition of Sunday Night Baseball was down 30 percent over last year.
The site reported that the “Braves-Phillies earned a 0.8 and 1.20 million on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball (including ESPN2 Statcast coverage) — down 30% in ratings and 33% in viewership from week five of last season (5/5/19: Cardinals-Cubs: 1.1, 1.81M), but up a tick and 2% respectively from last year’s comparable date (9/1/19 Mets-Phillies: 0.7, 1.19M).
“Earlier Sunday,” SMW added, “a Yankees-Mets doubleheader had a 0.25 and 381,000 on TBS and a 0.18 and 303,000 on ESPN2. Cardinals-Reds had 340,000 and Padres-Rockies 231,000 on ESPN Monday.”
But Saturday was not much better.
“FOX averaged a 0.9 rating and 1.36 million viewers for regional Major League Baseball last Saturday afternoon (Braves-Phillies or Indians-Cardinals), marking its smallest MLB audience in two years,” SMW reported.
The site also noted that the other woke pro sports are in serious trouble with the NBA, and NHL having a “rough start.”
Ratings for the NBA are particularly problematic and its wokeness is the reason for the ratings debacle. A recent survey found that the majority of fans said that the NBA’s political assault on viewers coupled with its fealty to China has made them stop watching.
It seems that President Trump is right, fans just aren’t interested in having politics and the Black Lives Matter agenda slathered all over their sports.
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