Well, This Sucks

Well, this always sucks.  The Pittsburgh Pirates are the afterthought in this town.

The Pirates lost with a walk-off in the bottom of the ninth last night against the New York Mets.  There is the recap.  Brand Building 101.  If the Bucs and ROOT Sports Pittsburgh don’t give a shit about a solution to this, why should we?

Getting bounced back in April right in the middle of the game was one thing.  The Pens ratings rule and are better than most every televised sporting event on planet earth.  We get it.  But wouldn’t ROOT want to capture all the ratings they possibly could?  Don’t the Pirates want you to see every game no matter what they have to do to make it happen?

Isn’t there an opportunity for ROOT to create a pop-up channel like ROOT Midwest does on nights like these, when games are directly conflicting each other?  Isn’t there more of a fight to be had than just hearing these quotes from the PG article when back in April ROOT dropped the Bucs in the ninth to switch to the Pens?

"“The Pirates, Pens and Root Sports have worked together towards our common  goal of bringing as much Pirates and Pens coverage to the fans as possible,”  Pirates communications director Brian Warecki said in an email.  “All parties discussed the options, determined the coverage plans given many  different game scenarios and agreed to those plans well in advance.”"

Brian Warecki is a really intelligent guy.  We have to imagine he’s not really happy about this situation.  Who would be?

"Root Sports GM Shawn McClintock said in an  email those discussions started in January, when the Penguins released their  revised schedule.  “We all worked to maximize the 39 total games, including nine days both teams  played on the same day during the month of April,” McClintock said."

Maximizing means “getting every possible rating point you can possibly get,” doesn’t it?    Why ROOT Sports Pittsburgh ignores the ratings the Bucs could provide in these situations is beyond us.  Why MLB still has insane and horribly outdated blackout rules is also beyond us.

But in the end, the Pens rule.

Get over it.