Is baseball headed for a resurgence?
The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres squared off on the recent edition of ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” and MLB pulled in some booming television ratings that nobody was expecting.
The game, which featured several stars on both teams, pulled in a whopping two million viewers — an awesome mark for Major League Baseball in 2024. In fact, it was the “most-watched edition of Sunday Night Baseball that did not include the New York Yankees or the Boston Red Sox in six years,” according to an ESPN press release.
In case you were curious, the Padres walked away from the weekend as the series winners.
Sunday night’s game brought in approximately 1.96 million viewers, with a peak viewership of 2.2 million that took place at 9:30 p.m. EST.
Padres-Dodgers ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ matchup hits impressive viewership milestone https://t.co/fZLtlju0UK pic.twitter.com/BUVzJett0k
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 16, 2024
I hope MLB realizes that it’s storylines that brought in these numbers … it’s the WWE formula: Drama creates interest.
Not only did we have two powerhouses riddled with talent taking on each other, but you had the sports betting investigation into Shohei Ohtani and the fact that this contest was a revenge game for Manny Machado. The drama creates at least three sexy headlines that would make any baseball fan tune in.
I’ll give you an example of storyline watching: I love professional wrestling, and can’t get enough of WWE despite everything being scripted. With UFC, I have a hard time getting into it, and this is real fighting that we’re talking about, obviously, but I just can’t get into it because of the lack of storylines. (RELATED: Marlins’ Skip Schumaker And Umpire Get Into A Couple Of Old-School Shouting Matches After Strange Maneuver From Giants)
Same way with hip hop … I couldn’t give a damn about mid-tier rappers, but I’m all in on the beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar (and Rick Ross at that), and it’s because of the juice that they’re giving us that’s creating storylines.
Moral of the story: Drama and gossip sell tickets and bring in viewers.