Brewers TV ratings up.

[Invader3K]

Good news for the Brewers from a business standpoint, yet again. http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/brewers.html "The average rating for Brewers local telecasts in the first half of the season ranked third among all teams in Major League Baseball, according to Nielsen Media Research. Brewers games on FS Wisconsin averaged 7.1 (or 64,279 households) in the Milwaukee market, second only to the Boston Red Sox (9.5) and St. Louis Cardinals (7.4)."

[BuckyBrewer61]

I'd be interested to hear other people's perspective on this, but I'm starting to get the feeling, at least within the city of Milwaukee itself, that the Brewers are just as if not more popular at this point than the Packers. I'm guessing that in reality the Packers are still, in fact, more popular, especially around the state, but these days I hear a lot more baseball talk and see a lot more Braun and Fielder jerseys than Rodgers and Hawk jerseys. I'm sure this has to do in part to the Brett Favre saga, but it just seems like there's more of a buzz these days surrounding the Brewers.

[hawing]

Boy, is that cool. After decades of feeling geeky for being the only one (in my immediate world) into the Brewers, it's nice to have company, even beyond this site.

[Invader3K]

One nice thing around here is that you can go into bars when the Brewers are on and the game will usually be on TV, without having to beg the server or bartender to put the game on.

 

It does seem like the talk radio stations are avoiding the usual Packers training camp over-hype, at least right now. It helps that the team is actually competitive so there is a lot of Brewers stuff to talk about at this point.

[logan82]

The real test of popularity will come if both teams suck again. My bet is the Packers will be much more popular. Of course, much of the lack of brewers popularity likely had to do with fans being disgruntled with the ownership group,

[milwaukeesportsfan]

Packers coverage will heat up exponentially in the coming weeks. This is kind of the lull before the storm.

 

As far as the Brewers are concerned, they seem to be like a model franchise from a business standpoint. Making the playoffs last year really helped. They really turned themselves around nicely from the Ulice Payne fiasco. Good for them. Keep up the good work, Mark.

[ClubLevel]

I just hope the new deal they signed with FSWi is compensating them enough for these high ratings.

[endaround]

This just shows that Milwaukee is a huge baseball city (again) and that Wendy and Laurel ran the team into the ground

[jeffy]

This just shows that Milwaukee is a huge baseball city (again) and that Wendy and Laurel ran the team into the ground

Yes, it has been amazing to see. It was all football all the time until quite recently here. I always thought and said this just is not a baseball town. (I moved here in 1985, but only resumed following baseball about 1993. Someone here (maybe it was even you) once told me years ago that I was wrong and just wait and see what happens if the Brewers start winning .

 

My wife teaches first grade and she has certainly seen a shift toward baseball and the Brewers amongst her students.

[dadofandrew]

The Packers outdrew the Crew on the final game of the '08 season about 3 or 4-1. There's no comparison yet. None.

[bucks2281]

FWIW, the Packers were on broadcast TV, while the Brewers were on cable. Probably doesn't make much of a difference, but still counts for something.

[Invader3K]

The big difference with the Packers and Brewers is that it takes more of a time commitment to be a dedicated baseball fan than a football fan. I think for a lot of people in this state, the Packers are their one weekly sports commitment. They watch the game on Sunday for three hours, and that's it. That's never going to change.

[jeffy]

Yes, I am not much of a football fan but I still typically will spend the 24 hours of time that is required to watch every Packer regular season game (if they do not conflict with baseball watching).

 

It also takes more of a commitment to actually attend games, rather than just turning on the TV. The Brewers will again draw nearly 3 million. The Packers will never approach that attendance figure...I know it is impossible for them to do so, but it is still impressive that with the entire state having about 5 million people, there will be nearly 3 million trips to the ballpark amongst them. In addition there seem to be more Brewer fans at their road games these days.

 

The last game I attended was a 6 pm monday night start. With it being Monday and the early start time, I was expecting they'd get maybe 35,000, but the actual attendance was over 40,000.

[bani1717]

The Packers are a team with state-wide tradition and lots of history. They also play what is probably the biggest overall sport in America as a whole. People talk about sitting down and watching football games, even people who are only casual sports fans. For baseball, a lot of casual fans don't do too much other than go to an occasional game or two per year. Any one football game is just so much more of a big-time event since there are only 10% as many games as there in a baseball season. For the Brewers to outdraw the Packers on TV regularly (or probably even at all) would require the Brewers to have sustained success for 10-20 years and for the Packers to be sub-.500 over that same span.

[TuesdaysWithRillo]

Think they'll actually show more than half the games in HD next season?

[Invader3K]

Think they'll actually show more than half the games in HD next season?

 

Probably. It's just a question of how many more. Someone on this site a while ago said FSN's main problem was with the amount of bandwidth available at any given time. With them carrying so many teams, there's only so much to go around, I guess. Hopefully the Brewers' new contract mandates all games (or at least most) being in HD.