The Brewers’ first owner and Major League Baseball’s commissioner emeritus is enthralled with the Milwaukee team’s exploits this season, but he doesn’t believe success changes the broader economic imbalance in the sport. 

Bud Selig, the Brewers’ owner from 1970 to 2004 and the league’s commissioner from 1992 to 2015, has been keeping close watch of his hometown team’s rise this season to MLB’s best regular-season record. That ongoing march by the Brewers, despite competing in MLB’s smallest media market and with the No. 21 payroll, continues Wednesday as they look to close out the Cubs and clinch a spot in the National League Championship Series. 

“I don’t think people understand just how remarkable this story is,” Selig tells Front Office Sports. “If I had told you on March 27, when the season started, they’d have the best record in the league and be where they are, you’d have thought the old guy had flipped. It’s just a wonderful story, and it’s a huge credit to what [owner] Mark [Attanasio] and his team have done.”

Selig also lauded the Brewers’ day-to-day leadership, notably president of business operations Rick Schlesinger and GM Matt Arnold, for building an organization that more than holds its own, both on and off the field, against larger-market competitors.

“They’ve done an exceptional job and the people here, throughout the city and the state, are just wild about what’s happening right now,” Selig says. 

Bigger Worries

Despite all of that, Selig characterized the Brewers’ success as an outlier to broader trends in the game. A growing fiscal disparity—as seen in part by the Dodgers spending nearly five times as much this year on payroll as the Marlins—has increasingly concerned many around baseball.

Selig is among them. Appearing in August on a podcast with former MLB Most Valuable Player Mo Vaughn, Selig noted the successful use of salary caps in most other major U.S. pro sports leagues. While commissioner, Selig sought a salary cap, with that move leading to a players’ strike that cut short the 1994 season.

Speaking to FOS, the 91-year-old Selig continued on a similar theme.

“The economic problems are still there. Does any of what’s happening now [with the Brewers] lessen any of those problems? No, and [Attanasio] would be the first to say that,” Selig says. “The same things we talked about a decade ago still exist.”

That dynamic will be central in labor talks set to begin next year between MLB and the MLB Players Association. Current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said last month at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit that no bargaining positions have been finalized, but union leaders are openly fearing that owners will again pursue a cap.

This past weekend of NFL action was highlighted by record-setting viewership for coverage on CBS.

As sports broadcasters keep benefiting from Nielsen’s new ratings methodology, CBS had its most-watched Week 5 singleheader window since it returned as an NFL TV partner in 1998. Sunday’s five games, led by the Broncos’ 21–17 win over the Eagles in the 1 p.m. ET window, averaged 19.57 million viewers, which is up 17% over last season’s comparable Week 5 singleheader window on Fox.

It also marked the most-watched NFL singleheader window for CBS in any week since 2013. Of note: The Buccaneers’ thrilling 38–35 win over the Seahawks in the 4:05 p.m. ET window was available to watch in only select markets throughout the country, mostly in Florida and the Pacific Northwest.

NBC averaged 21.9 million viewers for Sunday Night Football, as the Patriots upset the Bills 23–20 in Buffalo. NBC has drawn at least 20 million viewers for its first six SNF games of the season.

In the late afternoon window Sunday, Fox averaged 20.33 million viewers for its NFL coverage, led by the Commanders’ 27–10 win over the Chargers in most of the country, but also the Lions’ 37–24 victory over the Bengals in some parts. 

CFB Stays Hot, Too

In college football (also seeing a major uptick in ratings this year), the three most-watched games of the weekend were spread evenly across SEC, ACC, and Big Ten action:

• Vanderbilt-Alabama: 6.4 million viewers on ABC
• Miami–Florida State: 6 million viewers on ABC
• Wisconsin-Michigan: 4.6 million viewers on Fox

ABC is still off to its hottest college football ratings start on record, averaging 6.9 million viewers per game through six weeks of the season. 

Meanwhile, Nebraska’s 38–27 win over Michigan State drew FS1’s most-watched college football game since 2022, averaging 1.5 million viewers Saturday afternoon.

More Eyes on Pregame Shows

ESPN’s College GameDay once again drew its second-most-watched telecast on record—a mark already set multiple times this fall—as the traveling pregame show continues its momentum following its all-time high of 4 million viewers for its season opener that doubled as Lee Corso’s farewell episode. 

Saturday’s show averaged 2.8 million viewers from Tuscaloosa. This season has already delivered College GameDay’s five most-watched telecasts ever.

Major League Baseball’s final postseason quadrupleheader of the season Wednesday could also be a historic one for the sport.

The league will play four division series games over the course of the day, starting with the Mariners and Tigers from Detroit’s Comerica Park at 3:08 p.m. ET, and concluding with the Dodgers and Phillies from Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles at 9:08 p.m. ET. In between will be the Brewers and Cubs from Chicago’s Wrigley Field at 5:08 p.m. ET, and the Blue Jays and Yankees at New York’s Yankee Stadium at 7:08 p.m. ET.

It will be the last such day of playoff games before the schedule staggers and the postseason competition narrows toward the championship series and World Series.

Four Tickets Punched on Same Day?

The jam-packed schedule also presents an unusual confluence of clinching opportunities as the Mariners, Blue Jays, Brewers, and Dodgers are each one game away from advancing to the championship series round. If all four of those teams win Wednesday, that will represent the first time MLB’s four division series ended on the same day since 1996, and just the second such occurrence since this playoff round began in 1995. 

The high drama is likely to be a further boon to television viewership that already has been on an upswing for MLB. After seeing across-the-board increases during the regular season and then unprecedented viewership in the wild-card round, Fox said late Tuesday that the early days of the American League Division Series have produced a 14% viewership increase from last year. The Blue Jays–Yankees series has been similarly strong on Sportsnet in Canada.

TNT Sports said its coverage on Oct. 4 of the start of the National League Division Series averaged 3.4 million viewers, up 30% from its comparable coverage last year of the ALDS and up 16% from its initial day of the NLDS in 2023. 

“The wild-card round gave us a start to the playoffs that could not have been better,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said this week on the Phillies Radio Network. “Our ratings were phenomenal. Obviously, you get a New York–Boston matchup [to start], it just gets everybody engaged sooner.”

Playoff exits by the Yankees and Phillies, should they happen, would be particularly bitter pills for the teams with the No. 3 and No. 4 luxury-tax payrolls, respectively, this year.

Big Stars, Big Moments

The initial games of the division series, meanwhile, have produced a new set of signature moments from some of its biggest stars. The latest exploits include a game-tying home run Tuesday by Yankees superstar Aaron Judge to help New York hold off elimination by Toronto, and Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts and third baseman Max Muncy successfully executing a ninth-inning wheel play on Monday to cut down a late Phillies rally. 

“It was a best-player-in-the-game type of performance,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Judge’s Game 3 exploits. “It was special when, obviously and needless to say, we’re backs-against-the-wall.”