Are the Yankees "desperately needed" by baseball?

The NachoGrandpa writes:

"A radio talk show host, I think Colin Cowherd, said that Yankees-Angels had a TV rating of 6.5, whereas Dodgers-Phillies had a 3.5. The 3.5 is well lower than the big college football games, and the NFL gets around a 12.

He concluded that the Yankees are desperately needed by baseball to do well financially. Does this ring true to you?"


Yes, but NOT for television purposes. If national TV ratings were the only important issue, then MLB would do what I've wanted to see for years: Cut the season so that it ends on August 10th, have the playoffs and world series finish before the start of the NFL season, and make the games fit into a concise 2.5-hour bin. National TV ratings would, at minimum, quadruple.

The fact is, individual teams get substantial revenue from local broadcast rights and from attendance at the games themselves. This is NOT the NFL, where national broadcast revenue dwarfs pretty much every other source of money. Only die-hard baseball fans care substantially about the playoffs and world series if the home team isn't playing. This wasn't true 30 or even (maybe) 20 years ago... but now, NFL playoffs are national events regardless of who's in them; baseball playoffs are only truly important in the home market.

Nevertheless, which team gets the largest local broadcast revenue? The Yankees. Which team makes the most money per game throughout the season? The yankees. Which team sells the most paraphernalia? Yankees. Which team is guaranteed to sell out in a visitor's stadium, even if that stadium is named PNC Park? Yup, the Yankees. So strong New York baseball is definitely important to the league, but for different reasons than Colin Blowhard says.

(My second act as commissioner would be to put a team in Brooklyn named the Dodgers with the correct old insignia. I actually think that the New York market is underserved by baseball.)