[quote] NEW YORK (AP) -- While baseball attendance sagged during the first month of the season, national cable television viewers rose sharply.

The 41 games on ESPN, ESPN2 and TBS drew a cumulative 52.95 million viewers during April, the commissioner's office said Thursday, up 30.7 percent from 40.52 million viewers for 40 games in April 2001. Last year's games were shown on ESPN, ESPN2, TBS, FX and Fox Family.

Total viewers in the 12-17 demographic group increased 13.9 percent, from 1.85 million to 2.1 million.

``Despite in-park attendance being down slightly, our viewership is up significantly,'' said Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer. ``Having almost 13 million more viewers watch major league baseball on national television demonstrates that our sport's fan base is strong and growing stronger. And, it bodes extremely well for our future to see that more teen-agers are watching our games.''

Universal McCann analyzed the ratings figures from Nielsen Media Research to determine viewers.

Fox's national network broadcasts don't start until June.

Average attendance declined 5 percent during the first five weeks of the season, from 28,013 to 26,626.

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I'll hazard a couple of guesses...

1) I bet ESPN and ESPN2 have larger audiences in general than FX and Fox Family (on more cable systems, etc.). With FX and Fox Family (now ABC Family) out of the picture, more games are on the larger stations, causing a larger audience.

2) Since the info comes from Bud's office, it's probably distorted.

I agree ... I don't know if I'll ever take anything coming from the Commissioner's office at face value. But the bleeding-heart baseball diehard in me wants to believe that the sport is alive & well and doing better than ever. If the numbers are indeed accurate (and I'll wait for confirmation from A.C. Nielsen before believing anything), then the explanation is rather obvious. If you want to take a family of 4 to Fenway, it'll cost you $176 (for the cheapest seats, parking, a hot dog & soda apiece). If you want to watch the Sox on TV, you just have to pay for basic cable (which you'd probably do anyway).

I thought Bud wanted us to believe baseball was going bankrupt. If cable viewership is increasing, won't that lead to better future television contracts?

In a time when extra spending cash is hard to come by, even for businesses, less are willing to put up with the exhorbitant price gouging that we as fans have allowed to happen. It is OUR FAULT for ever letting the price of attending a sporting event get that high in the first place. Our economy works on a supply and demand basis. If we pay those high prices we allowing for the demand. Let's see if prices start to come down. Do you think they will?
On the corporate level subject, I know of many business men and women who can't afford the same season tickets that they have purchased in recent years. This really hurts franchises because business typically will buy in groups and for the whole season. When multiplied, this really starts to add up. Don't get me wrong however, I think most teams (especially Yanks, Braves, Chicago..) that have big TV markets are making plenty of money. Ticket sales are the icing on the cake. Given that thought, those markets should have the lowest priced tickets.