Storyline: College baseball lags far behind all other major sports in America. But there are ways to increase its popularity. Give it more TV exposure. Make it easier to follow. And move the College World Series to a MLB park.
Baseball season has finally arrived! Fans are caught up in the excitement of the new MLB season. They buy season tickets. They proudly wear their caps. They’ll jabber on about their favorite teams, saying how “this time” they’re going to win the World Series–even if they’re the worst team in the Majors.
Courtesy:d1baseball.com
But why don’t we see this kind of hoopla in college baseball? In 2015 the clinching game of the MLB World Series had 17.2 million viewers, while the College World Series drew just 1.7 million viewers. That’s a big discrepancy.
And consider this. The 2015 NCAA Basketball Championship Game had approximately 9.4 million more viewers than the clinching game of last year’s NBA Finals.
So why don’t fans get excited about college baseball? Poor advertising and exposure has caused college baseball to become the stepchild of major American sports.
How might it reposition itself more favorably with fans? College baseball will gain greater popularity if the following things happen.
More TV Exposure
As elementary as it may sound, the major reason college basketball and football are so popular is that they’re always on TV. Saturdays in the fall are dominated by college football and college basketball reigns supreme nearly every night during the winter. But college baseball is rarely on ESPN. That’s why it’s not as popular as either college football or basketball. The only time TV features college baseball is during the College World Series (CWS).
ESPN needs to make an effort to broadcast more college baseball. And there’s an easy way to do it. Major League Baseball has prime time broadcasts on ESPN on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday nights. ESPN should broadcast a college game in the slot immediately before the MLB game so that fans can catch the end of the college game before the MLB game starts.
Courtesy: sportsmediareport.net
For optimal advantage, ESPN could pair a college game with a MLB game. If Sunday Night Baseball is featuring a rivalry game between the Dodgers and Giants, ESPN could precede that game with a tilt, say, between UCLA and Stanford.
College baseball needs more TV exposure. If ESPN begins to broadcast college games that coincide with the prime-time MLB game, then college baseball is bound to become more popular.
Making It Easier to Follow
MLB fans don’t have time to watch every single game during the course of the 162-game season, but they won’t miss a beat if they follow teams via ESPN.com and the ESPN app. But ESPN doesn’t make following college baseball that easy.
There are team pages for college football and basketball teams, but none for college baseball. And college baseball doesn’t show up on the ESPN home page. The main place to get news and scores is D1Baseball.com, a website many fans don’t even know exists.
College baseball will trend upwards in popularity once ESPN begins to act like “The Worldwide Leader in Sports” — and make college baseball easier to follow.
Moving the Location of College World Series (CWS)
Courtesy: grantland.com
The College World Series is hosted in Omaha, Nebraska. Is there a more boring place to go than Omaha? How about playing the CWS in a MLB stadium? The leading candidate, in my opinion, is Busch Stadium, where the St. Louis Cardinals play.
Situated in downtown St. Louis, Busch Stadium is smack dab in the middle of the country. It’s one of the newest stadiums in the Majors, too, and seats nearly 20,000 more fans than TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha. Busch is located next to a variety of interstates and has ample parking, ensuring that traffic jams will be to a minimal.
Omaha is set to host the CWS through 2035. After that it needs to be hosted at an MLB stadium, preferably Busch. Having the CWS at Busch will help college baseball gain popularity. The Series would be played in a famous MLB stadium and in a baseball-crazy town.
*******************************************
College baseball lags far behind all other major sports in America. But there are ways to increase its popularity. Give it more TV exposure. Make it easier to follow. And move the CWS to a MLB park. If changes like these aren’t made, then I think college baseball will continue to decline, at least in terms of fan popularity. And, in that respect, college baseball has little room for error.
