The 2015 World Series could extend into November and there is one sure
thing about the New York Mets-Kansas City Royals matchup, games three
and four are scheduled to be played during the “November sweeps” on
October 30 and31, if they are not rained out, and that will have a
positive impact for Major League Baseball’s American broadcast
partner, Rupert Murdoch’s over-the-air FOX syndication arm.
I’m Evan Weiner with the Politics of Sports Business.
Baseball traditionalists are up in arms that this year’s World Series
may extend into November. But there is a good reason Major League
Baseball is playing this showcase event so late in the baseball
calendar. It is called the November sweeps, and based on ratings
networks can gauge how much they can charge for prime time programming
down the road. The overall Mets-Royals viewership is not going to be
all that high but it will be enough for FOX to claim at least two
winning nights and if the series goes five, six or seven games, and
the network which has a seven game series starts making real money on
game five, FOX will be able to claim as many as five winning nights
which is big during the 26 days of the sweeps period. That might be
more than enough for FOX to adjust ad prices upwards for other
programming such as The Simpsons. Major League Baseball isn’t the only
sports league that plays in a sweeps month, the biggest TV show of
them all, the National Football League’s Super Bowl takes place during
February’s sweeps. Neither the National Hockey League nor the National
Basketball Association apparently have strong enough appeal to be put
their respective championships in the May sweeps.
Major League Baseball is a business and it is giving a partner some
help in paying the bills by playing late October and early November
games in TV’s championship season with the network who wins raising
prime time advertising rates the most.
This article was republished with permission from the original publisher, Evan Weiner