Are 7 game series and broken curses enough to save baseball?

Prime-time network TV ratings have been declining for decades.

There is pretty much zero evidence that steroid "scandals" had any negative impact on fan interest, spending or revenue.

Another big factor is the widespread availability of baseball content (live video on TV and online, and also video highlights, game tracking, fantasy stats, news/twitter/etc online), that in some ways lessens the impact of the World Series. When I was a kid in the 1980s, the only ways you could see the players on teams in the other league were on the NBC Game of the Week, the All-Star Game, and the playoffs and World Series. Plus the minute or two of highlights on the local news (maybe a few more minutes of highlights if you had ESPN). So the World Series was a huge cultural touchpoint (as was the All Star Game), and they had fantastic TV ratings.

The expanding availability of baseball on TV, online, and elsewhere is a great thing overall for baseball (for both MLB and the fans), but it has in a way diluted the World Series.

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