Keep Your Eyes Peeled For More Texas Rangers Games On FOX
Monday, July 21, 2008
Last week we examined a post about how the lack of Sox and Yankees games were hurting Baseball ratings and that in the next few months that's pretty much all we were going to get in the upcoming weekends. Well according to Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News, you can add the Texas Rangers and the "Josh Hamilton Story" to the mix as well....
Just about the time Sports Illustrated plastered Hamilton on its June 2 cover, Fox began making inquiries about shuffling its Saturday afternoon schedule to accommodate a Rangers game or three. But the team smartly had little interest in moving the three subsequent pre-All-Star Game Saturday home games from evenings to broiling afternoons in Arlington.Obviously the main weekend games are already set, but others can certainly be added and many of you in the midwest are usually the ones getting the third option on Saturdays. The story is wearing thin on real Baseball fans who have heard about it for the past few years, but for the weekend warriors it might actually pull in some viewers.
Imagine the raised eyebrows from coast to coast had TV listings showed the Rangers hosting the then-first-place Rays on Fox's June 7 broadcast. What next, the Arizona Cardinals hosting the Detroit Lions on NBC S unday Night Football?
Still, Fox remains hard at work trying to find a place for the Rangers in the coming weeks.
"We have major interest," is the way Fox spokesman Dan Bell summed it up.
Over at ESPN, Hamilton is "our new hero." That's how Len DeLuca, senior vice president for programming, described the Rangers center fielder.
"The Rangers are in the center of our radar screen now as opposed to the periphery," DeLuca said. "Josh Hamilton put them there. Now the team has to continue winning games."
Hot air: Josh Hamilton adds to Texas Rangers' clout with networks (Dallas Morning News)
12 Comments:
Amen, howard. As a diehard Rangers fan, I've been hearing about this story since the winter, and I've sought out as many stories about Hamilton as I could find.
I am ecstatic that the major networks are interested in showing the Rangers some much-deserved attention. The Rangers have a phenomenal core at the big league level (Hamilton, Kinsler, Bradley, Young) and a ridiculously good farm system that has seen multiple players hit the big leagues this year (Davis, Ramirez, Teagarden, Duran, Harrison, Hurley) with many amazing talents still yet to come. The more of a spotlight the franchise gets, the better.
I'd be disappointed to have to put up with Fox announcers like Brennaman/Karros on these games instead of the local broadcast with Josh Lewin and Tom Grieve, but that's a small price to pay for the attention given now that the franchise that's finally headed in the right direction.
I hope the Rangers hold firm on their no-move policy. Arlington, TX afternoons are brutal in the summer, and there's no reason the team's fans should have to suffer so that Joe Buck can talk about Hamilton smoking crack
The funny thing is that all these announcers try to tell us what Hamilton went through yet none of them have even come close to doing the stuff that he did. That being said, this story is wearing thin.
I heard about it last season when Hamilton was with the Reds. To me, it's old news.
My fear is that because the networks don't recognize anything west of St. Louis, it will be the Rangers and the Yankees, the Rangers vs. the Rays, the Sox and the Rangers ...
I wish baseball could be the story. I'd rather hear about Soria and the Royals, and get new information than hear the same, old Hamilton info. After learning about his past, I pretty much just care about how he plays, and "care" is used loosely even. Hype is sooooo annoying.
Sorry, nobody wants to watch Soria and the Royals, not even their own fans.
That said, I'd be interested in a Rays-Rangers game. In the AL alone, there are a number of interesting, exciting, and competitive teams besides the tiresome Red Sox and Yankees. What about the Twins, the White Sox, the Tigers? The A's and Angels? Oh, sorry - ESPN can't air a game after 7 or maaaaaybe 8 p.m. ET any more.
Rays-Rangers play the weekend of August 15-17 in Arlington, when Fox could switch out Angels-Indians, Mariners-Twins, or White Sox-A's for them and/or have the Sunday night game on ESPN. On the Tigers, it seems like they lose every nationally televised game they showed.
Don't trust anything fro Barry Horn. He doesn't even think the ticket in Dallas exist, and it's only one of the top rated sports talk stations in the nation. Barry wants to be Jay Mariotti's lover!
if you don't like the story, put your tv on mute b/c hamilton is one of the best players in baseball (drugs or no drugs). on top of that, more than 10 million people watched hamilton's hr show. mlb would be idiots to not give the rangers more (as opposed to no) coverage.
Fox Sports could have scheduled Rangers-Twins for last Saturday. Josh Hamilton + dome = national telecast.
Flexible scheduling and showcasing top teams has helped the NFL. Inflexible scheduling and only showing NY/LA/Chi/Bos has hurt baseball.
The story is wearing thin on 'real' baseball fans?
I'd consider myself and my friends 'real' baseball fans and not one of us is tired of the Hamilton story.
Anything that gets the focus off the f'ing sawks/yanks is a good thing, if you ask me.