http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/sports/baseball/chicago-cubs-primetime-television-audience.html 2016-10-08 03:51:08 Cubs Enjoy an Unfamiliar Perk of Success: A Primetime Audience If the Chicago Cubs capture the World Series this year, a team known for its tradition of day games will be seen almost entirely in a much more coveted TV viewing slot. === If this is the year the For many reasons, that is as it should be. There is natural interest in a franchise that has not won a World Series since 1908. The former lovable losers have grown up. They have candidates for the Most Valuable Player Award in Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant, and a possible Cy Young Award winner in Kyle Hendricks and Jon Lester. They have a smart, And Major League Baseball is capitalizing on the undeniable lust for watching the Cubs’ quest to reach and win the World Series. Each of the games in the Cubs’ division series against the San Francisco Giants, which started Friday, is scheduled for prime time. If the series goes to five games, four of them will be on FS1, one on MLB Network. That late-night scheduling would most likely continue for the Cubs if they reached the N.L. Championship Series, where most of the games are in prime time. But there are four dates when games are played in both the afternoon and evening. And there is no requirement for how the leagues split the prime-time slots. A potential Cubs series against the Los Angeles Dodgers or the Washington Nationals could be shown on at least three of those nights. Last year, when the Mets swept the Cubs in the N.L.C.S., all four games were in prime time on TBS. The series drew 7.9 million viewers, more than double the audience for the A.L.C.S. on Fox and FS1, which featured the Toronto Blue Jays and Kansas City Royals. TBS benefited from the interest among Cubs fans, as well as Mets supporters in the nation’s No. 1 television market. “We evaluate story lines all the time,” said Tony Petitti, M.L.B.’s chief operating officer. “When we craft the schedule, we look at the Cubs’ run in the postseason last year. We look at their start this year, their chasing history, and you want to make sure you’re giving one of your biggest stories a big push in the postseason.” Petitti said that no other teams have shown bitterness at M.L.B. for its prime-time scheduling of the Cubs. But in 2003, there was at least one major complainant: the Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. He saw that the Yankees’ division series schedule against the Minnesota Twins had three afternoon slots for five potential games, including two at 1 p.m. The Cubs had four prime-time opportunities in five games against the Atlanta Braves. This irked Steinbrenner, who considered the Yankees to be baseball’s ultimate prime-time show. “I’m not happy,” he said in a statement criticizing the 1 p.m. scheduling. “The Yankees are the biggest draw in baseball and tied for the very best record. Who else should be in prime time? If I had the decision-making process, I’d put the Yankees in the night game. We’re the best-known team and that’s where we belong.” He didn’t get his way — and the Yankees and Twins played to a meager daylight audience of 2.6 million on ESPN, while the Cubs and Braves were seen by nearly 10.9 million on Fox. Steinbrenner likely fumed from the first to last game. If the Cubs reach the World Series — which has not occurred since 1945, when they lost to Detroit — they could provide a jolt to viewership, which in the past decade has ranged from 12.7 million to 19.4 million. When the Red Sox ended their drought by beating the St. Louis Cardinals in 2004, an average of 25.4 million viewers tuned in. The figure would almost certainly have been higher if the series had gone beyond four games; audiences in best-of-seven series typically swell as story lines and tensions build. Still, even a four-game average of 25.4 million was the most for a World Series in a decade and greater than any since. The possibility of a World Series featuring the Cubs and Red Sox exists. The cursed team versus the one that shed its curse. Wrigley versus Fenway. Together, they could wrangle an audience as large as that which watched the Red Sox-Cardinals, possibly even more. But the Cubs must get there first. If they do, they will do it almost entirely under artificial illumination, not the sunlight that Ernie Banks and Ron Santo played under so joyfully, but never with postseason rewards.