Friday, October 25, 2013

Choices



 

As the Breeders Cup 2013 version fast approaches, Here are some thoughts from this neck of the woods:

Things go up, things go down. Maybe you caught Keith Olberman's show on ESPN2 this week about baseball television ratings. In 1971 37 Million people watched a Sunday afternoon Pirates World Series Game 3 win over the Baltimore Orioles. There were 61 million people in the United States at the time.

The 2013 World Series average game so far has about 12 million watching out of 300 million people.

But we live in a different world now, flooded with endless choices of entertainment including cable systems that gives you hundreds of channel choices as opposed to the 5 channel choices you had in 1971. We could do anything at anytime, between our TV's, computer and Smartphone it is all there at our fingertips. Today a weekday, I can choose from 24 different live sports events from college football, Pro Hockey, Pro Soccer, Golf, College Hockey, College Soccer, NBA Exhibition and more to watch on my cable system. Tomorrow, Saturday, that number will go over 100.  Throw in non sports entertainment choices and the choices are in the thousands.

Baseball, like Horse Racing is still very popular and those who love it will do so devotedly. When considering the other choices out there, it's actually amazing how both games have endured and how, in Racing, how many people weed through all the choices and choose to watch and bet on it.