Goren Dispels Notion That World Series Shift Came From Fox

Ed Goren Denies TV Dictated Changes To World Series

Fox Sports President Ed Goren “needed to set the record straight” after the initial reaction to MLB and Fox moving Game One of this year’s World Series from Saturday to Wednesday “was that it was another television power play,” according to Tom Hoffarth of the L.A. DAILY NEWS. Goren: “Most knee-jerk responses that TV dictates everything is inaccurate more than it’s accurate.” Goren said that the positives are that Friday and Saturday are the “lowest-rated TV nights of the week, so a midweek start already has a larger built-in audience.” For TV ad sales, “there are more weekday business hours to sell time if the series goes past a fifth game.” And a potential Game Seven “won’t get pummeled by the NFL on a Sunday night.” Goren: “Think about how baseball shares an October weekend sports section with the NFL and college football. If you start on a Wednesday, you’re dominating the sports news on those days instead of competing with other things on the weekend” (L.A. DAILY NEWS, 5/18).

TAKING THE SUBWAY: Since interleague play began in ’97, the 16 Yankees-Mets games aired on Fox have gone to an average of 48% of the U.S., compared to 21% for 14 White Sox-Cubs games. On Saturday, 76% will get Mets-Yankees at 3:30pm ET and 23% will get White Sox-Cubs. Fox Sports Senior VP/Research & Programming Bill Wanger: “With Yankees-Mets, you get the whole Eastern Seaboard. With the Cubs-White Sox, you can make a circle around the Midwest, and then it’s a tossup out west, although we feel at this time that the Yankees-Mets has a little more appeal there.” Fox’ Yankees-Mets games have produced ratings that are 81% better in N.Y. than they “usually are for the network’s games.” In Chicago, Cubs-White Sox has produced ratings 90% above the average. Since ’02, the Yankees and Mets have played seven of ESPN’s ten top-rated interleague games (N.Y. TIMES, 5/18).

BIRD WATCHING: FSN Midwest added 20 additional Cardinals games to its schedule this season, but “some operators are balking at the surcharge the RSN is charging for the games.” Insight, Mediacom and Comcast are not carrying the games but Comcast and FSN “are still talking.” Missouri’s largest MSO, Charter, is carrying the games, as are DirecTV and Dish Network (CABLEFAX DAILY, 5/18).