Espy's

The other two choices were better IMO. 

Reason #4,892,135 never to watch ESPN again.

Just out of curiosity, was it any one loss in particular that ESPN thought was most impressive or was it the whole body of work they assembled in going 1-2-1?

I don't understand the constant attack on soccer on this board. Its a sickness. This is a baseball board. If you don't like soccer don't bring up the subject. Now I will inform the soccer hating ignorant why this year was significant for Team USA soccer. They came out of a pool they had no business advancing from. They were fortunate the tie breaker worked to their advantage. But they earned that too. More significantly Team USA soccer has established through the last few World Cup competitions they are a top 16 team. Top 16 is significant since it means consistently advancing past qualifiers before the World Cup and advancing past pool play in the World Cup. There was a time when Team USA couldnt even get past qualifiers to even participate in the World Cup.

 I'm more of the thinking....reason #4,892,135 to never watch award shows.  I'd rather go shopping for curtains with my wife.

The day the Fordham flipper lost out to Brett Farve was the last time I watched the Espys.

Just saying....

I wasn't attacking the original post as much as the ongoing posts about soccer.

And as for the "what's impressive about 1-2-1" comment; Team USA was 14-5-4 over the course of the season. They were 7-0 in a qualifying round they had to play just to be invited to the World Cup. There was a time when Team USA didn't qualify for World Cups. Now they're an established Top 16 team. They probably won't have to qualify anymore. 

Although I doubt Soccer will ever overtake Baseball as a go to sport for me and I would have gone Mariano as well but to deny that Soccer is taking root in the US this time around is head in the sand.

For kids (defined as <40 to me ) I think given the choice between a World Cup and a World Series game it is going to be the World Cup.  Simple facts 15MM average for World Series last year and 14.1 for US in World Cup despite 2 games played during the day on weekdays.  The highest rated baseball game ever is Game 7 of the 1986World Series.  For the math challenged that was 28 years ago making the average 12 year old then ..wait for it....40 today.  Time and demographics are on soccer's side. 

Baseball has the feel of newspapers circa 1990.  Those that could see the internet coming knew that newspapers life cycle was about to be radically changed.  Baseball is losing in the struggle to hold people less than 40 to more exciting sports which include soccer to them. 

I probably won't live long enough to see the NY Red Bulls outdraw the Giants and Jets but I might to see them outdraw the Yanks and Mets. Right now they average about 8,000 per gate less than the Mets - and in Seattle the Sounders outdraw the Mariners nearly 2 to 1 and by 21,000 every time they open the gates, tick, tick, tick. 

Full disclosure I am a Mets fan and they are unwatchable despite probably overachieving so far this year and 1986 was half a lifetime ago. 

BTW luvbaseball's hyping the  attendance for Seattle Sounders games is an example of the hype that grates on me.  

He cherry picks the one MLS team that dominates the league in average attendance by a factor of about 2:1 over the second best drawing team and compares it the average attendance of one of the worst drawing MLB teams.  Then he ignores the fact that the MLS team plays only 15 home games per year, which should makes each game a special event, which means the lowly Mariners actually sold about 3 times as many tickets as the Sounders.  Then he extrapolates this extreme outlier market across the country and forward in time to make it seem plausible that MLS breathing down MLB's neck. 

Reminds me of Jack Nicklaus' answer to persistent questions about Tiger overtaking his Majors record and being the greatest ever.  I forget the exact words, but he acknowledged Tiger's greatness and the likelihood Tiger would win more majors, but then he asked, "Shouldn't he do it first?"  I feel the same way about soccer.  Maybe it will take over the US sports scene.  Just stop telling me how inevitable it is.  Let it become the king before you proclaim it king.

I did use the Seattle as an example and they are the best drawing team in MLS. I did not hype the fact they outdraw 29 of the 30 MLB teams and the 30th outdraws them by about 1,500 per game.  By your logic of number of tickets sold the Tampa Bay Rays are bigger than the NFL, good luck convincing anyone of that.  Fanny's in the seats when you open the gates is as apples to apples as you can get.

I used New York precisely because it is typical MLS attendance and the center of baseball as a sport where MLS is closing the gap...which was the real point I was making.  By the way overall average MLS is about 18,800 and MLB is 30,900.  Still a good difference but closing by 500 to 1,000 per year.

I was in the Soccer is overhyped camp for 40 years (since Pele) and never bought the inevitability argument...until now.  I still don't think it is as good a game as baseball but then again I still like newspapers and the evening news.  In other words I am baseballs core demographic and I am much closer to collecting Social Security and going in the box than I am to drinking my first beer. 

Criticize my conclusion if you like but baseball is shoveling uphill on this one now.  It might still beat it off but I don't think it will.  Lose the kids eyeballs = losing your standing.  Baseball has lost coming up on a 3rd generation to NBA and NFL.  Soccer is the new kid on the block...now and not before now.

The MLS has still has a long way to go to attain prominence. Relative to European Premier league soccer it's minor league. But the sport of soccer and events like the World Cup have become relevant in America. 

I've never felt soccer has been shoved down America's throat. I've encountered very few people who have the elitist, soccer is the biggest sport in the world attitude. My son had played travel soccer since he was eight ** and played high school soccer. If there are people like this I would have been around them. One of my friends played World Cup for Nigeria years ago. He understands where soccer fits in America. The only person  ever encountered with an attitude was my son's British high school coach. 

** If you think preteen rec baseball can be bad, try watching preteen rec soccer. At least in baseball the kid can't run away from the batter's box.

It will be interesting to see what happens with preteen soccer and baseball in about fifteen years when kids who grew up on soccer and not baseball have their own preteens. Then there's lacrosse. I recently went to a bunch of LL district all star games out of curiosity. It was a good biking destination. I talked with dads, league and district people. They said LL participation is down almost 50% in the past ten years (and preteen travel hasn't caught on here yet). Most said dads who can't coach are boring the kids in baseball and driving them to lacrosse.

My youngest son made the HS JV baseball team as an 8th grader and lost a position battle for 2B with a kid in his class.  He thought the game had become boring playing OF and being in about 3 plays a game and so as a freshman he dropped baseball and picked up a lacrosse stick and was a 3 year varsity starter.  It is a great game and is another that is growing in popularity. 

Funny part was the lacrosse people were stunned how good he was despite never having played before.  I kind of chuckled and said hitting a 75 mph curve ball square is a lot harder than catching a ball that is passed to you in a net.  I will watch a full NCAA top level lacrosse game on ESPN when I see it and it is highly entertaining IMO.

I can't really participate in the discussion of the ESPY's.  I turned it on....listed to Drake and his garbled English for about 3 minutes and turned it off.  Hard to believe that a company like ESPN can't find someone to host that actually is understandable and has some personality

The exact opposite of this opinion is true. ESPN getting Drake to host the ESPYs was brilliant marketing and provided a huge appeal for a younger demographic - the audience necessary to continue to build a successful and growing brand. MLB needs to do more of this.

Not surprisingly, JH is on the money and nailing the point about over/under 40 and the future. 

Nomination: Bud's job to JH!

I've never watched the espy's and probably never will. When it was created I saw it as self promotion for a network of mostly insufferable personalities who think they're bigger than sports. Other than watching actual sports events I don't think I've watched an ESPN show in ten years.

You think young kids that play sports aren't already watching ESPN?

Or, maybe kids who don't play sports, but follow Drake, will suddenly be interested in sports?

I'm not following this marketing logic.

The sports aspect is secondary--which is why you're missing the logic.

Think of the ESPN brand as entertainment (which it is, in reality, because all sports is is a subset of entertainment activities.) By drawing in other entertainment customers, primarily those that are targetable and will have spending power in the future, the network is building a customer base not for now, but for 10-15 years from now.

I'm not criticizing your conclusion.  I'm criticizing your methodology and the fact that you think it supports any conclusion at all.

Both sports' attendance numbers are stagnant from last year to this year.  The average MLS game this year has drawn 18,704 fans, which is up about a half a percent from last year.  The average MLB game this year has drawn 29,901, which is down about one percent from last year.  

It would be imprudent to extrapolate anything about either sport from these flat lines.  It's even more imprudent to base projections on non-random subsets of this limited data.

As I've said before on this site, I expect soccer to grow because pretty much everything does grow in the soil of our prosperity and freedom.  I don't begrudge soccer whatever markets it draws.  But the rumors of its explosive growth and of baseball's inevitable decline strike me as unsubstantiated.  

Have you seen what is being built at LakePoint?  Somebody has wagered a lot of smart money that the future of the whole spectrum of youth sports is bright.  

Sports marketing initiatives should not be gravitated toward people that are already fans of the sport. They should be focused on casting a broader net.

When I was in grad school, we did a study on BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. Those five countries are emerging markets with rising middle classes and thus, present a huge potential financial boost for entertainment corporations. Marketing sports domestically follows the same trend - garner the interest of the middle class youth market and you'll have a strong following of support for an extended period of time.

The fact that Drake presented in the manner he did means nothing. *Drake* was the appeal. He is a pop culture figure that appeals to millions of youth worldwide. *Drake* is considered to be "cool" or "hip" or "mainstream" or whatever your choice of word is. Young people make a cognitive connection between *Drake* and "cool," and will therefore make a cognitive connection between "cool" and "ESPYs." I refer to it as Pythagorean marketing.

Millions more American youth know who Drake is than know who Josh Donaldson is. Josh Donaldson is the best player on the best baseball team in the league. Why don't more young people know who Josh Donaldson is? And as a league, how does MLB make more young people aware of who Josh Donaldson is? 

The above is just an example (one of many) that could be addressed. But when the median age of MLB All-Star Game viewership is above the crucial market demographic of 18-49, there are serious issues that need to be addressed. ESPN is aware of the market they need to focus on in their entertainment efforts. MLB needs to follow suit.

I was going to start my post 'When I was a marketing exec, I hired recent grad students to ..." but I choose not to

If ESPN wants to be TMZ, then I agree with you.

Their 'brand' is dependent on their core strength - sports.

Edit: deleted a section that didn't make sense

I agree with your last point. But, what about MLB?

To the TMZ comment…I don't really think they care what the content is, as long as it is marketable and brings in money. When I was in high school, there weren't SportsCenter segments dedicated to Shabazz Napier unfollowing LeBron James on Twitter. But, if that's what the audience wants to hear about, that's what ESPN will broadcast.

I think ESPN may be going through their CNN phase.

CNN used to be the place for real news.  Then they thought could grow it into something bigger with a bigger (18-24) audience.  They forgot that their core strength was news.  Real news.  Breaking news.  Their new audience was fickle and left them for other channels. 

I just looked at the Wed. cable ratings - Duck Dynasty, Family Guy, Teen Mom, and Big Bang Theory beat the hip, happening ESPY awards.

ESPN is in the business of adding viewers and selling advertising. If becoming a sports TMZ is what it takes I'll bet ESPN is willing to walk down that road. I recently read an article about the changes at ESPN. They want to be more about their personaliies (and less about their content). They need to be different from MLB.TV, NFL Network and FS1.

The thing people here have to understand is advertising is not geared to the 50+ crowd. We've made our money. We have our stuff. The ads geared towards us are for ED and prostate. The big advertising dollars are in the 25-49 demographic. We're going to have to get accustomed to watching sports entertainment that makes our eyes roll.

I was reading an article about Jim Bouton today. He said one thing he can't stand at MLB games is the constant blaring of music. He wants to know why fans can't just enjoy the sounds of the game. Welcome to the world of marketing to the young Jim.

Hey, that stuff's expensive.

I mean, wait, how would I know. Right?

I don't think anyone is saying baseball will disappear.  In fact baseball properly led  should be one of three true global sports....along with Basketball and Soccer.  Try as it might the NFL is extremely unlikely to ever take deep root outside the US other than in a few small pockets. 

With about 50% of the population still in love with the game baseball is still able to attract large audiences and generate huge TV money. 

However....

There is a 30 year trend downward for baseball viewership on TV.  Try to cloud that fact any way you want.  30 years in no blip and there is nothing to suggest it will go the other way anytime soon.

I think you have drawn the incorrect conclusion on Lake Point.   Travel ball is the only growth area in youth baseball and Lake Point is catering to it.  The proper conclusion is that it is a one off in that regard.  There will not be 100 or even 10 more of those popping up all over the US.

For what it is worth baseball has two huge problems that are not going to be easy to cure:

1. It gets a small percentage of truly elite US Athletes so the quality of the game suffers.  I wonder what a Homerun off of LaBron James bat would look like?  How about Richard Sherman roaming around center in Yankee Stadium?  I'd wager at any SEC, Big 10, ACC, PAC 12 or BIG 12 school today of the best 50 athletes on campus 45 or more of them are on the football and basketball teams. Ironically this is in the face of longer careers, better health and better money when it comes to football. Some of those guys if exposed to baseball at 8 or 9 years old might have become the next Willie Mays and will instead become nobodies or Special Teamers in the NFL for 2 or 3 years  
2. Games take too long and are too slowly paced.  Radical rules changes should be considered to combat this.  Go NFL on it. Baseball as a sport is not ready to change the way the game is played like the NFL has in order to stay popular.  Try this on, base on balls become 2 bases on balls.  You want to pitch around someone with 1st base open and a runner in scoring position...it costs you a run.  Throw strikes, swing the bat and bring back the 2 hour and 15 minute MLB game. 

Luv  Baseball - your proposed rules are interesting. They remind me of something... a cool game that I have not seen played for years, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is....

..... oh, yeah, this. 

His name is Mike Trout.

The steps are beginning to be set by MLB to market him as the "Face Of Baseball." This type of marketing effort is what will drive up the popularity of the sport with the youth. Baseball needs a Michael Jordan or a LeBron James. Market the individual athlete as a world-class entertainer, not the sport as a whole. That will attract today's youth.

A huge problem baseball has is it's biggest games (playoffs and World Series) are decided after kids have gone to bed. They end after many adults have gone to bed. An NBA playoff game starting at 8pm ends by 10pm. An NHL playoff game starting at 8pm ends by 10:30. A MLB playoff game starts at 8:30 and ends after midnight.

I don't know if this is an issue of the game's start time or the length of an average baseball game. In my opinion, it's the latter.

ESPN is aware of the market they need to focus on in their entertainment efforts. MLB needs to follow suit.

MLB is listening! They are going after the all-important, but clearly underserved, over-100 demographic

105-Year-Old Woman To Become Oldest Person To Throw Out First Pitch At MLB Game