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The day off today gave me a chance to catch up on a column from Richard Sandomir for the Times that I haven’t gotten to yet this week. Between the hoopla surrounding the Mets resurgence and working hard this week, I just hadn’t gotten to it. But the day off is a good chance to address an important topic: the Mets have been on national TV a lot this season.
It’s especially surprising that ESPN and FOX would put the Mets on so frequently considering how pathetic they were last season. Apparently, the network execs expected a comeback when they worked out the season scheduling.
This Sunday in Philly will be the Mets’ third straight Sunday night game on ESPN and they had them last Monday against the Cubs. Monday night’s rain out against the Dodgers was supposed to be on ESPN as well.
The article cites Mike Ryan, VP of programming at ESPN.
Ryan said ESPN calculated that the Mets games it chose would be better than others being played on those Sundays, and that the Mets would be a better team than the one that lost 92 times last year.
Ryan rejected the suggestion that ESPN front-loaded its Sunday night schedule with Mets games as a hedge against another losing season. Five future Sunday night Mets games are listed among ones that ESPN can choose from later this season. Four of them are against the Phillies.
The Mets Report 