Caesar: St. Louis rules midsummer baseball TV world – STLtoday.com

It’s the middle of July, the heart of the baseball season. But good luck finding an extensive amount of talk about the sport on the national TV network gabfest shows unless you’re tuned to MLB Network.

Many of these programs are being dominated by sports that aren’t even in season. The NBA, especially Kevin Durant’s move from the Thunder to the Warriors and Dwyane Wade’s departure from the Heat to join the Bulls, has been the subject of untold hours of jabber this week.

Colin Cowherd, one of the prominent new hosts on the Fox array of outlets, even points out how irrelevant baseball has become for him — and Fox shows the World Series as well as many games throughout the season as well as being the TV home of many teams on the local level.

More power to him for being able to disparage one of his employer’s major properties while on the air. It’s a positive for Fox that he can speak his mind freely. He says he’s better off concentrating on soccer, mixed martial arts and the NBA than baseball for his audience.

That’s a very bad sign for baseball, which on the network jabber-fest circle in midsummer often trails the NFL — which is in its slowest time of year as many of its coaches, front office personnel and players are on vacation a few weeks before training camps open yet “NFL Live” rolls on weekdays on ESPN.

And someone, on some show, can’t wait to chat about Johnny Manziel — who isn’t even in the league anymore.

Baseball is about to reach its summer pinnacle, with the All-Star Game and Home Run Derby set for next week. And while the nation has had less interest in those events in recent years, they continue to be big deals to S. Louisans.

St. Louis is the top-rated city in the country in this century for both events.

Fox has shown every All-Star Game dating to 2001, and says an average of 20.2 percent of homes in the market have tuned in to the coverage locally on KTVI (Channel 2) according to figures from Nielsen. That far outdistances the next market — the rating in Detroit for that period is 13.9.

St. Louis also is tops for the Derby, but by a narrower margin. Dating to 2000, ESPN, which has shown all those contests, says 8.7 percent of homes in the market have tuned in, on average. Boston is next, at 8.4 percent.

BY THE NUMBERS

The top 10 markets nationally in ratings for Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game and Home Run Derby in this century (Game ratings date to 2001, Derby ratings to 2000):

ALL-STAR GAME MARKET RATING

1. St. Louis 20.2

2. Detroit 13.9

3. Milwaukee 13.2

4. Boston 13.1

5. Kansas City 12.8

6. Minneapolis 12.5

7. Cincinnati 12.4

7. New York 12.4

9. Seattle 11.9

10. Chicago 11.7

HOME RUN DERBY MARKET RATING

1. St. Louis 8.7

2. Boston 8.4

3. Providence, R.I. 7.1

3. Cincinnati 7.1

5. Milwaukee 7.0

6. Philadelphia 6.8

7. Hartford, Conn. 6.7

8. Detroit 6.5

9. Pittsburgh 6.4

10. New York 6.3

Notes • The rating represents the percentage of homes with a TV that tuned in. All-Star Games have aired on Fox (KTVI, Channel 2 locally). Home Run contests have been on ESPN.

Source • Nielsen.