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TV/MEDIA INSIDER
Baseball's good, but football's a click away
Friday, October 03, 2008
We need a bailout. There's no way we can watch all the games we want with undivided attention. They're all being played at the same time.
This is too bad for baseball, the one team sport that broadcasts its best games in the heat of NFL and college football seasons.
Other big team sports in this country (no, soccer isn't one of them) — football, basketball and hockey — don't do this.
Even the NBA and NHL — leagues chided for running their championship games into June — have only competition from an early regular-season baseball schedule. That's not to say some aren't peeling off to watch tennis and golf, but those two sports hardly take a week off and neither, does it seem, auto racing or horse racing.
The NFL plays its Super Bowl on Feb. 1, 2009. (I know this because of the big announcement that Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will perform at halftime, which, unless I am mistaken, is way too long unless there is a must-see wardrobe malfunction).
On Feb. 1, there might be some midseason NBA and NHL games, but nothing to make you click the remote.
That brings us back to baseball, which has a real cool two-tiered playoff system leading into the World Series, but the competition is a big Week 5 in the NFL and important college games, where snow on the ground isn't considered a hindrance.
That means from Thursday, Oct. 2, through Monday, football — big games — are being contested when baseball wants you to watch a summer sport.
How to change that? Well, we've got to have faith in a bailout plan that will help the economy, but there probably isn't a plan that will be able to showcase the World Series again. Cutting back the regular season would be a help, but with all the commercial tie-ins, that's probably not going to happen.
We're going to have to live with this, with switching between Ohio State-Wisconsin (8 p.m., ABC) and Saturday's baseball playoff games (Philadelphia at Milwaukee, 6:30; Chicago Cubs at L.A. Dodgers, 10 p.m., both on TBS) and remind ourselves that remote controls are good.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2157 or mkatz@DaytonDailyNews.com.
