Ratings, Ratings, Ratings...

So, today's spiel is all about Television Ratings, not the parental guide ratings but the number of viewers watching a particular show. We are constantly hearing that there are fewer people watching particular sporting events compared to last years sporting events. For instance, this year's ratings for the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship was lower than last year's. The reason I'm talking about this today is I read an article in the Washington Post about the new tennis series. Sally Jenkins wrote the article and a major point in her article is how Tennis has messed up because they made stupid business errors and therefore not getting the tv ratings it supposedly could. I find this not to be a one-to-one correlation as Sally Jenkins tries to tell us. Every major sport has seen a decrease in ratings and it's also unfair to compare one sport to another. I am constantly peeved at how the broadcasters and journalists are always saying hockey isn't getting the same ratings as football. Well, duh! Each sport has its own fan base, and obviously every sport would like everyone to follow it, to get the higher ratings which some how equals more revenue. But, get real people. We don't even have sport journalists that like every sport, and these are the people who are really into sports. Why should the sport execs or whoever think that sports should get high ratings consistently? I'm not quite sure that they have realized that people have many options these days in watching tv and can make it even broader. Many people have found things to do that is not related to watching tv. I'd really wish we would get away from this ratings bullsh*t and focus on how competitive sports are. I can understand people not being able to catch every single sporting event on tv and planning on just watching the championship. I guess really what I'm frustrated about is how much business has affected the sports world. The media has just become obsessed with money and we are losing our focus on the talented men & women that play sports.

So, in regards to tennis trying to get higher tv ratings, good luck. I think first you should try to get your players more interested in sport, as Sally Jenkins mentioned.