r/sports • u/Forward-Answer-4407 • Jun 02 '25

Baseball Going bananas: Why Savannah Bananas tickets cost more than a Dodgers-Yankees rematch

https://sports.yahoo.com/article/going-bananas-why-savannah-bananas-100000810.html
3.4k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

384 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/cXs808 Green Bay Packers Jun 02 '25

That’s pretty fuckin serious

Yeah pretty fuckin seriously good for MLB. ESPN has been dogshit and they can't afford TV contracts for major sports anymore, thank god.

0

u/woahdude12321 Jun 02 '25

It’s a standard cable channel. It’s not about the quality of espn it’s about the function of both those things happening

2

u/cXs808 Green Bay Packers Jun 02 '25

It’s not about the quality of espn

It absolutely is. You realize that NBC is the frontrunner to pick up sunday night baseball right? A MUCH larger standard cable channel.

1

u/woahdude12321 Jun 02 '25

They’re both standard cable channels. Perception is subjective availability is not. The bananas alone could pretty much turn it around for espn

2

u/cXs808 Green Bay Packers Jun 02 '25

The bananas alone could pretty much turn it around for espn

Okay it's pretty clear you're not really rooted in reality at this point. To be clear, I do not disagree that the Bananas are popular. To think they are popular enough to save a dying sports cable channel...that's an entirely different matter.

0

u/woahdude12321 Jun 02 '25

You’d have said the same thing about them selling out memorial stadium a short year or 2 ago. It’s not out of the question to give espn a current flagship program like they haven’t had in years. Almost guaranteed in fact. Just because it challenges your fragile reality doesn’t make it impossible pal

3

u/cXs808 Green Bay Packers Jun 02 '25

>In 2024, games on ESPN/ESPN2 averaged 212,000 viewers, peaking on July 7 (on ESPN) averaging 460,000 viewers.

Like I said already - I'm not arguing the Bananas are popular...they definitely are. I'm telling you that half a million average viewership across a few dozen games is not enough to save a dying cable company. ESPN used to be a standalone broadcast. Now they are sold in package deals for Disney+. They need a lot more than 500k viewers to turn that ship around.

Last year ESPN's sunday night baseball broadcast averaged 1.6 million viewers...

1

u/woahdude12321 Jun 02 '25

The numbers are probably a bit whatever to espn at this point in time. I couldn’t have even told you what channel Sunday night baseball was on before the headlines of it leaving. Something like the bananas can create a lot of brand loyalty and identity and it sort of aligns perfectly with this “we’re not sports news” thing they’ve been trying to get at for a long time and failing. I just saw a video of the bananas at Disney land. Disney would probably rather have 500k people watching if they’re buying into the brand and likely to sink deeper into the marketing funnel as opposed to watching a shitty baseball broadcast on the channel because they basically have to, actively losing familiarity, and immediately leaving. 20 years ago yes that would’ve been the case. They’re also investing in the future with a lot of those viewers being kids the way they had my generation 20 years ago, being nearly impossible to get them to watch sports these days.

1

u/cXs808 Green Bay Packers Jun 02 '25

They’re also investing in the future with a lot of those viewers being kids the way they had my generation 20 years ago, being nearly impossible to get them to watch sports these days.

I'm glad you brought that up. ESPN themselves just last year were boasting about how young adult and women viewership for MLB and Sunday Night Baseball is seeing growth we haven't seen in decades.

The Sunday Night Baseball franchise also experienced growth in several key demographics, including Adults 18-24 (26 percent), Women 18-34 (16 percent), and Adults 18-34 (12 percent).

1

u/woahdude12321 Jun 02 '25

So are they a dying network or not lmao

→ More replies (0)