East Coast Bias in Sports Media

Image courtesy of Photobucket.

Last week on The Scott Van Pelt Show on ESPN Radio, Scott, shown above on the right, was reading through lots of viewer email regarding the well-known "east coast bias" at ESPN, and to a lesser extent, LA bias. Many fans in recent years have complained about sports media's near-exclusion of smaller market teams in the Midwest and West Coast. For example, during the baseball season, you may not see Seattle Mariners or Kansas City Royals highlights during the 11:00 Eastern SportsCenter, but you'll certainly see Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees highlights. ESPN's chief NFL analyst Chris Mortensen is currently traveling around the country to select training camps, none of which are west of Dallas.


Photo courtesy of Flickr.

To address this issue, and expand their broadcasting presence, ESPN just opened a studio at L.A. Live, shown above, across from the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles. This move hasn't quelled people's dissatisfaction with ESPN's coverage. Now, various sports fans claim there's an L.A. bias at ESPN. This is the West Coast version of the same complaint ESPN has faced for years, because of where they broadcast from. ESPN broadcasts from Bristol, Conn., near the New York and Boston markets, and the aforementioned LA studio.

The number one rule in TV is ratings. New York is the number one TV market, LA is number two, Boston is number five. By covering these teams, ESPN is likely to get the highest possible ratings, which in turn means more revenue flowing into ESPN. When the Yankees and Red Sox play each other, they easily are the top draw in all of baseball, which means higher ratings. Likewise, the Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Cowboys draw top ratings in their respective sports. Part of this is because of the franchise history. The Lakers and Boston Celtics have won more NBA titles than any other team and have a historic rivalry. The Cowboys once had the mantle of "America's Team." The Yankees have won 26 titles and have the famous rivalry with Boston. People are drawn to the success and history of these franchises. The rule of ratings also applies to the order of highlights, known as "the rundown". The top story for any given SportsCenter will always feature a big sports star or a big-market team, unless something totally out of the ordinary happens (i.e. a Kansas City pitcher throws a perfect game).

Another factor to consider is that, generally, people in the U.S. have moved from east to west. If you go to an Angels-Yankees game in Anaheim, there will be many people wearing Yankee pinstripes. If you go to a Diamondbacks-Cubs game in Arizona, half the crowd will be wearing Cubbie blue (on one trip, I even saw a fan fly a giant Cubs flag inside the Diamondbacks' stadium.)

Also, in my own personal experience, the East Coast cities are better sports fans than their West Coast counterparts. I went to a Baltimore Orioles-Boston Red Sox game in June in Baltimore. The Orioles haven't had a winning season in years, and yet, the stadium was packed with O's fans cheering on their team (and giving us Sox fans a hard time.) When I went to Fenway in 2005, it was even more intense with 40,000 people singing "Dirty Water" and "Sweet Caroline" and chanting "Yankees Suck!", even though they were playing the Angels that day. Everybody arrived early in both Baltimore and Boston, whereas here in Los Angeles, the joke goes "they arrive in the 5th and leave in the 7th." LA fans do tend to arrive late and leave early, mostly because the traffic can be horrendous. During the season, East Coast cities really invest in their sports teams in terms of fan awareness of the team's current state. In LA, many fans are "bandwagon fans", they jump on at playoff time, then go about their business after the season. In short, it seems like there isn't an offseason for East Coast teams and their fans.