SportsBiz: Tune out claims of NFL superiority

A game featuring Sport A is played at the same time as a game featuring Sport B. The game with Sport A gets higher television ratings. Therefore, Sport A is more popular than Sport B.

This oversimplistic analysis of television ratings led to a series of comical pronouncements this week that the NFL was clearly the most popular sport in the history of the world and that Major League Baseball ought to be downright ashamed.

Yes, it’s true, the NFL preseason game Sunday night between the Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans on NBC did draw 7.9 million viewers compared with 4.7 million for the game between the Red Sox and Yankees on ESPN.

“Meaningless preseason football continues to be even more attractive than the best that baseball’s regular season has to offer,” ProFootballTalk.com’s Mike Florio wrote Tuesday.

There is no doubt that the NFL has supplanted baseball as the true national pastime. And on the surface, it would seem remarkable that an exhibition football game would outdraw a game between baseball’s two biggest rivals.

But it’s really not that big of a deal.

For one thing, the Red Sox-Yankees game was the most watched baseball game on ESPN in more than two years and the most watched baseball game on any network this year. So it’s not as if the game was seen by a lone man who happened to fall asleep on his couch and didn’t change the channel.

Second, it’s always dangerous to compare cable broadcasts with those shown on over-the-air television, and the football game had a much stronger lead-in. It was preceded by coverage of the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremonies, while ESPN showed its usual “Baseball Tonight” program.

Although the Titans-Bills game meant nothing, it did have some significance - it marked the unofficial start of the NFL season and was packaged accordingly by NBC and the league.

Ratings for baseball games almost will always trail those of the NFL because games are so much more plentiful; therefore, each baseball game is generally less significant.

This year, baseball’s regular season stretches from April 5 to Oct. 4. That’s 183 days, with each team playing 162 times in that stretch. There are just two days - the day before and after the All-Star Game - without games. In other words, anyone who misses a game needn’t feel too bad, because there’s likely to be another one tomorrow. In the case of the Red Sox and Yankees, those two teams will face each other six more times this season, including three games next week.

Compare that with the NFL, in which the regular season will stretch from Sept. 10 to Jan. 3, a total of 117 days. Teams will play on only 40 of those days, and 23 will feature just a single scheduled game. The relative scarcity of games makes each one significant and often allows them to be showcased nationally.

Baseball will draw nearly 70 million fans to games this year. Tens of millions more will watch on television, and thousands will watch games online.

It’s fine to acknowledge the NFL’s dominance of the sports landscape. Football always will outdraw baseball on a head-to-head basis. But there’s no need to overstate the significance of that.