It has been a solid start for the Washington Nationals. For the first week of the season, the Nationals’ TV ratings are up a staggering 113 percent, according to statistics released by Major League Baseball. That’s good enough to place third on the list of most-improved ratings behind Toronto at 161 percent and Texas at 123 percent.
The Orioles’ ratings are up 39 percent — good for seventh among the most-improved ratings — which is great news for MASN, the network that broadcasts the Nationals and Orioles.
The Nationals’ ratings boost may reflect the higher expectations that fans have for the team this year. Some good news for the Nationals: Three years ago the Capitals began to see triple-digit rating increases on their telecasts.
Winning — or even being competitive — is a good start for the Nationals and the Orioles, but will those ratings translate into fans at the gate?
Baseball overall had a great first week with Fox, ESPN, TBS and the MLB Network all seeing their ratings up over last year’s opening week.
NHL headed for big pay day as networks make pitches
Sports Business Daily speculated that the NHL will get in excess of $200 million a year for its new TV rights package. That is a big jump considering the deal with Versus netted the league $77.5 million a year. The current deal with NBC involves revenue sharing and not a rights fee. ESPN is pitching hard to get the NHL back. Meanwhile, Turner Sports has entered the mix. It has replaced Fox as the third player in the NHL rights race that could be resolved as early as June.
NBC and Versus have the right to match any offer that comes to the NHL, but there is no doubt that a second cable partner is a must.
As we all know, ESPN has the networks needed to carry all the regular-season and Stanley Cup playoff games.
The present knock against Versus and NBC is that they can’t carry all of the Stanley Cup playoff games, leaving fans underserved. This is a major priority for the NHL: making a deal that gets all the Stanley Cup games broadcast live in the United States. That is the case in Canada, where among CBC, TSN and TSN2 all of the games are covered.
Examiner columnist Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this!
