The MLB playoffs' TV ratings potential, and the league's murky media future

Richard Deitsch and Andrew Marchand are sports media writers for The Athletic. They converse every couple of weeks on sports media topics.

Richard Deitsch: Andrew, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the MLB postseason because there is an extraordinary amount of interesting stories heading into it, including some that offer the potential to attract casual viewers.

This will be the first postseason for Shohei Ohtani, who is coming off one of the great regular seasons in the sport’s history. I think some fans who barely watch baseball during the regular season will at least check out how Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers are doing. There are big-market teams all over the playoffs including New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Houston. That offers the possibility of a boost in viewership, especially for the World Series. There are great baseball stories within the other teams too. Baseball has a very good story to sell as we head into the postseason.

You covered the sport day-to-day for many years as a beat reporter in New York. What stands out to you right now from a media perspective?

Andrew Marchand: The bigger picture for baseball is the media equation with the regional sports networks (RSNs). The reason I bring it up is because of the advantage the Dodgers and Ohtani have over almost all of the rest of baseball. They are in the midst of a 25-year, $8.35 billion deal with Spectrum. It goes until 2039. That’s more than $330 million per year on average. With the RSN model blowing up all around the game — especially in the smaller markets — this is a tremendous advantage. Other clubs, like the New York Yankees, are in pretty good shape but are still potentially going to feel more of the impact of the disintegrating cable bundle.

If MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and Co. want to embrace streaming for the whole sport as one, it is impossible to see how the Dodgers or the Yankees will be interested in any sort of shared revenue. It would drive down the value of their franchises. There are incredible stories — and a good hand for this postseason — but I think the Dodgers’ run of being the gold standard, despite the lack of rings, will continue as they have a lot of gold coming. Plus, Spectrum, unlike Diamond Sports, will not be declaring bankruptcy, so this Dodgers agreement is expected to go through to its conclusion.

Richard Deitsch: It’s a major story as far as a competitive advantage. I’m not saying MLB is setting up the system this way, but the reality is a Yankees-Dodgers World Series would be a boon for the sport’s viewership.

Last year’s five-game series between the Texas Rangers and the Arizona Diamondbacks averaged 9.11 million viewers, the lowest-rated and least-watched World Series ever. It was lower than the Dodgers against the Tampa Bay Rays in 2020, which was impacted by COVID. As Sports Media Watch notes, the past four World Series rank as the four least-watched in history.

I have seen you write often that baseball’s viewership problems are overstated given the local nature of the game, but from my perspective, the sport desperately needs a World Series with some national appeal. How do you see it?

Andrew Marchand: Yes, as someone who has covered New York sports for three decades, I don’t want to sound parochial, but it is better for the sport when the Yankees are consistently good. Anywhere you look at the numbers. TV. Online. Kids wearing hats. It’s Yankees, Yankees, Yankees. Having stars like Aaron Judge and Juan Soto thriving will bring in more viewers.

The Yankees are the type of franchise that people will watch regardless because some love them, but many hate them. Either way, they are very compelling. The Dodgers are like that, too, but not as big. However, Ohtani vs. Judge in the World Series would be awesome. (Sorry, Milwaukee.)

Let’s move to the booths. Joe Davis is now working his third World Series with John Smoltz in the post-Joe Buck era. TBS is led by Brian Anderson and Bob Costas on play-by-play. ESPN will lead with their Sunday crew, Karl Ravech, David Cone and Eduardo Pérez. It’s not that exciting of a group.

I criticized Costas a few years ago on the Yankee series he did. When I watched him this year, he was a little more into his old form, letting the games breathe more. Davis hits the big calls nicely, though I find he and Smoltz fine but not that exciting during the middle innings of action. What do you think?

Richard Deitsch: Most of my baseball watching during the regular season is local, so I can tell you plenty about the Toronto Blue Jays broadcast and not as much about the national broadcasters this season. But I watch the playoffs, and I’m generally fine with Davis and Smoltz. I really like Ken Rosenthal, who also writes for The Athletic, and Tom Verducci as reporters. I’ve worked with both, so keep that bias in mind, but I think sports broadcasts are really aided by field reporters who have deep reporting chops in a league.

I’ll continue my long-standing belief that Joe Buck will go down as one of the most underrated game callers ever because he didn’t get the credit he should have during his run. I think with so much baseball inventory, it’s much harder for a baseball announcer to stand out versus an NFL one. But the best baseball game caller today for me is Jason Benetti, who I wish we heard more on postseason games. My radical idea is for Fox to have Benetti and Davis switch off on a play-by-play for each World Series game, but Fox would never go for it.

Let’s finish up on this. ESPN, Fox and TNT all have their current deals ending in 2028. It would not surprise me if we saw a couple of World Series games as exclusively only to a streamer after 2028. Or even a legacy player sharing World Series rights with a streamer. What’s your thought?

Joe Davis, right, is set to call his third World Series as Fox’s lead play-by-play broadcaster, alongside analyst John Smoltz. (Harry How / Getty Images)

Andrew Marchand: ESPN is definitely going to opt out, or threaten to opt out, and rework its deal by the end of this season. MLB has had a long-standing relationship with Apple, so I wouldn’t totally rule them out of the future, and maybe there could be some all-you-can-eat sort of deal, though unlikely, as the first answer indicates. It leaves Fox, ESPN, TNT Sports and Amazon as the big players. I don’t see at this point NBC or CBS getting it, nor any of the other streamers.

MLB’s media future needs to be sorted out because it is definitely a lot murkier than the NFL or the NBA. This is coming from someone who is more bullish on the sport’s future than some others.

(Top photo of the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman: Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)