The Red Sox host the Yankees this weekend with the teams entering the three-game series tied atop the AL East, and a Yankees-Red Sox game "remains the most durable, reliable draw in the sport -- by far," according to Neil Best of NEWSDAY. All three games of the series will air nationally -- MLB Network is airing Friday's game, Fox has Saturday's matchup and ESPN's "Sunday Night Baseball" will originate from Fenway Park. It is "worth pausing to appreciate it, a long-running reality show that regularly delivers and whose novelty seems not to have worn off even in a time of long games and short attention spans." ESPN VP/Programming & Acquisitions Mike Ryan said, "From our point of view, this rivalry has lost none of its edge." Fox Senior VP/Programming & Research Mike Mulvihill added, "It's still by far the best thing we have going in regular-season baseball." Best notes this weekend's Phillies-Giants series, which features two of the last three World Series champions, typically "is a television executive's dream." However, Saturday's game "will be on in only 18 percent of the nation" as part of Fox' coverage. ESPN in the last decade "has averaged 3.96 million viewers for Yankees-Red Sox games on Sunday nights," while all other games "have averaged 2.18 million." Those figures "mostly have held up in recent seasons, including 3.93 million viewers for the two" Sunday night matchups so far in '11 (NEWSDAY, 8/5). Best on Thursday tweeted, "Fox scheduled Yankees-Red Sox Saturday for more than 150 stations. Only one asked to be switched to Phillies-Giants: Lincoln, Neb" (TWITTER.com, 8/4).
TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING? In St. Louis, Dan Caesar notes one reason "that has been espoused for low TV ratings for postseason baseball is that when 'big name' teams aren't involved, viewers have little connection with upstarts because they haven't seen them much on the big networks during the regular season as they concentrate on the big-market clubs." Caesar writes the Yankees-Red Sox series, and the coverage of those games, is a perfect case in point" (ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH, 8/5).
