Week 10: Carroll and Fortunato

As part of a continuation of last week’s readings, Brian Carroll’s article discusses the black press during the Negro League era. Rather than focusing on stories such as Jackie Robinson and all of Negro League baseball, Carroll narrows his focus to one specific topic within the Negro Leagues: the East-West Classic.

The East-West Classic was essentially the Negro League’s version of the MLB All-Star Game. It featured the Negro League’s biggest stars facing off against each other in Chicago, as Chicago was one of the focal points of black baseball and also allowed for fans from all over the country to attend the game. The game was heavily-attended – as Carroll points out – and was the highlight of Negro League baseball. The game, in many ways, was actually much more successful than the MLB All-Star game for many years.

Throughout his discussion about the East-West Classic, Carroll attributes much of its success – and failures – to the black press of the time. Much like last week’s readings, we see how large of a role the black press played in the success of the Negro Leagues and the East-West Classic was no exception. Carroll explains how dependent the game was on the black press. Papers such as the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender were responsible for the advertising and organization of the game, even down to the detail of counting the ballots for who would play in the game.

However, as Carroll points out, the success of the East-West Classic was not able to be sustained. The East-West Classic, which at one point was one of the top African-American social events in the country, began failing for a variety of reasons. After the desegregation of baseball, the Negro Leagues did not get nearly the same amount of coverage and support from the black press. This – along with several other reasons – would contribute to the Negro League’s ultimate demise, including the demise of the East-West Classic.

On a completely different note, John Fortunato’s article focuses on the topic of fantasy sports and how fantasy sports might affect viewership of a game. He looks specifically at fantasy football, which is the most popular fantasy sport to date. While Fortunato acknowledges that there has been studies on fantasy sports in the past (economic impacts, for example), he notes that there has been nothing about how fantasy sports might influence the amount of viewers for a game.

With this topic, Fortunato asks the question whether fantasy sports is a variable in the number of viewers. He examines a number of variables: fantasy football players starting in fantasy leagues, the teams’ past success, the two teams’ current winning percentage, and the score of the game. Using these variables, Fortunato examines just how strong the influence of fantasy football is on the NFL.

After examining the relationships, Fortunato was able to determine that fantasy football is indeed a variable in viewership. All of the data – number of players starting and TV ratings – supported a relationship between fantasy football and football TV ratings. There were some relationships – prior winning percentage, for example – that was not necessarily an indicator of TV ratings.

This goes to show just how strong of an influence fantasy sports (specifically fantasy football) is to their respective sports. Fortunato concludes that fans – even the most casual – are more inclined to watch a game if their (or their opponent’s) players are involved in a game. Thus, it is implied that not only is there a huge economic impact of fantasy sports, but these fantasy sports games and sites also provide a boost in popularity for each respective sport.