Fox Sports plans to take its regular season coverage of Major League Baseball to prime time for just the third time next week (with a schedule May 22 that includes a game between the Yankees and Mets) and the network might pitch an all prime-time schedule of games as soon as next season, according a report in USA Today.Fox Sports president Ed Goren sees an opportunity for higher ratings on Saturday nights, a time that traditionally draws weak TV ratings -- especially during the summer months.
Still, sports has a proven track record of drawing viewers on Saturday.
College football has shown that the past several years on ABC/ESPN, so much so that the sport has become a Saturday night staple. That's been the case for ESPN for years, but the ratings in recent years have shifted the programming approach for ABC as well.
Also, NASCAR races usually draw higher numbers on Saturday nights than on Sunday afternoons, which is part of the reason ABC has Saturday night Cup Series races scheduled this fall when it does not plan to televise a college football game.
Fox Sports plans to gauge interest from some prime-time baseball games this summer and then consider altering its weekly schedule during the regular season for 2011 if ratings increase as expected. The network also hopes to have more games available during those Saturday night timeslots to better regionalize coverage -- and draw better overall national ratings -- in the future.
While some want to make this approach sound like a revelation, it's really just a matter of common sense and a throwback to an earlier model that worked for the ill-fated Baseball Network in the mid-1990s.
Fox Sports boss David Hill always said sports were "tribal" events, and his term for community/local/regional areas with passionate interest was right on the mark. People care, if they have a team to care about. And that's especially true for baseball.
That's why national coverage with just one or two options fails for baseball. It's a more regionalized sport than the NFL, which could put almost any two teams on a Saturday or Sunday night and draw ratings better than those of a league championship game in baseball.
Also, prime-time Saturdays in the summer are a wasteland of filler programs that have little hope for long lives. Airing sporting events instead just makes sense.
The only drawback in the Fox Sports plan this summer is to base what it does in the future on ratings for the games this summer. Because they have A-list games this summer (after Yankees-Mets next week the slate includes Yankees-Dodgers on June 26), that could inflate expectations slightly.
Still, prime-time baseball on a national broadcast during the regular season just makes sense. It's hard to believe that has not been the more logical approach to years.
For older audiences and fans, it would end a lineage of afternoon "Game of the Week" action, but those weekly network games have not been must-see viewing for more than a decade and a move to enhance the ratings of a broadcast partner would be in the best interests of Major League Baseball, too.
It's just prime time for a prime-time move.