Sports

Long season, extra playoff teams erode interest in World Series

Say, whatever happened to the World Series? Whatever happened to the greatest event in American sports?

First, let’s stop with this easily parroted absence-of-big-market-teams explanation. Even when TV ratings weren’t used to explain and excuse everything, the World Series meant plenty to America.

Smaller-to-small market teams always made big World Series ratings; the markets were irrelevant. It was, after all, the World Series.

The 1979 Pirates-Orioles Series made monster TV ratings, as did the 1982 Cardinals-Brewers. Those teams, it’s worth noting, were the best in their league that season. The ratings for those two Series were roughly the same as they were for Mets-Red Sox in ’86.

And all three of those World Series were real World Series, the kind last played in 1999 by the Yankees and Braves.

The highest-rated World Series in history was between the Phillies and Royals in 1980, not New York and Los Angeles, so this no-big-TV-market chant only sounds right.

The loss of what used to be the greatest event in American sports — the loss of a real World Series — seems to become more profound as the World Series becomes less and less special, easier to ignore as the detritus of greed-stricken leadership and a 162-game season that ends with an everybody-into-the-pool, eight-team crap-shoot.

Even the warm, fuzzy little things that made the World Series special — the carryover appeal from when we were kids — have been left diminished or forsaken.

Consider that for the World Series, American flag bunting used to be hung from in front of the first row of stands, right field clear around to left. The World Series was made to even look special.

Now? After two games in St. Louis, haven’t seen a stitch of it. All one can see is there-to-be-seen-on-TV advertising. Follow the money — down.

Low viewer turnout for NBC highlight show

If A tree falls in the world’s biggest forest and you’re not watching it on TV, does it make a sound?

If your New York Sunday NFL viewing habits are anything like mine, chances are you never have seen more than a few flashing moments of NBC’s elaborate and costly

“Sunday Night Football” pregame show. And it seems almost impossible that anyone around here has watched an entire 80-minute presentation.

Doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad or in-between. That’s not the issue. No matter how good it might be, who is going to turn away from the end of a live game on CBS or FOX to watch a studio show? And when CBS or FOX cut away from the close of a no-longer-in doubt late afternoon game to show the end of a tight game, well, NBC might as well be holding a friends and family sale.

NBC’s overstated “Football Night In America” pregame show has been produced and presented, starting at 7 p.m. since 2006. But at 7 p.m., most otherwise interested

parties are watching the ends of games that began at 4:15. It’s not as if “60 Minutes” ever actually appears as scheduled, except on the West Coast.

And when those 4:15 NFL telecasts end — at 7:15 and well beyond — it’s at last time to eat. The next time one is inclined to tune to NBC is at 8:20 for the kickoff — provided

one hasn’t had his or her bellyful of football.

I feel for the NBC folks who prep all week to present a major network pregame show — news, highlights, discussion, opinions — that few are moved to watch. But can you blame us? On the other hand, if Tony Dungy suddenly cursed up a storm, who would notice?

Whatever, it must be a drag preparing a big Sunday meal, every week, then serving it to an empty table.

* The NHL’s regional TV rules continue to defy common sense and the appeals of thousands of hockey fans who figure they’re being conned.

For example, Albany, N.Y., is deemed a territory of natural interest in the Buffalo Sabres, thus Sabres telecasts regularly appear on cable in the Albany area, to the exclusion of MSG’s Rangers telecasts.

Yet, Albany is 250 miles from Buffalo, and just 150 miles from NYC.

Those fans who suspect that this might be part of a ploy to force them to buy the NHL’s premium cable TV package have every reason to suspect just that. One also would think that a league that needs every fan it can get would be more eager to best serve every fan it has.

Francesa finally finds new sidekick

It took a while, but Mike Francesa has found a sidekick to replace Chris Russo.

As reader Dom LaVarco advises, “Stay tuned for more of ‘Revis and Butthead’!”

Francesa’s full-blown megalomania left him astonished, Friday, that Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis would be so rude as to hang up on him.

Harumph! Francesa clearly found such rude treatment from a caller intolerable.

➤ What passes for statistical enlightenment and expert analysis from professionals is astonishing.

Monday night, with the Jets in no danger of losing to the Dolphins, ESPN analyst Jon Gruden noted five of the six teams who had a bye the previous week will be Week 6 losers.

Nice stat. But it meant nothing. The six teams that were off the previous week were the Rams, Dolphins, Browns, Redskins, Cowboys and Ravens.

The Rams lost at Green Bay. The Dolphins were losing to the Jets. The Browns lost at Oakland. The Redskins lost at home to the Eagles — no big surprise. The Cowboys lost at New England. The one after-bye winner was the Ravens, who beat Houston in Baltimore.

So what did “the bye week” have to do with five of six teams losing? Nothing — unless one is surprised that better teams, especially at home against lesser teams, tend to win.

➤ Question from reader Keith Cavet, Houston, Texas: Why must ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” halftimes include day-before game highlights narrated by Chris Berman, called “The Fastest Three Minutes in Football”? “Why only three minutes?”

Answer: ESPN often uses sports as a prop, the way clowns use seltzer bottles.