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Darren Rovell is a sports business reporter for CNBC.com. He writes some interesting stories about the behind-the-scenes aspect of sports that fans don’t always think about when they are watching the NFL or Major League Baseball on television.

I often find what he writes interesting, but he struck a nerve with me the other day with a post about how the Tampa Bay Rays making the World Series would negatively affect television ratings.

“Isn’t the great story of the FILL IN THE BLANK HERE team worth some eyeballs,” Rovell writes of what fans and radio hosts ask him each time a Cinderella team makes a run. “And the answer is no. The bottom line if the Rays make it to the World Series they’d arguably be the most anonymous team to ever make it there.”

To which I say “Who freaking cares.” Just because spoiled New Yorkers used to having their team(s) in the mix every season don’t make it for one lousy season, just because the favored Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim both choked away their opportunities to make a run this season, just because TBS and/or Fox Sports didn’t get the major market teams they wanted to maximize the fattenization of their wallets, doesn’t mean that I have to feel badly about it. If none of those teams’ fans tune in should I feel bad for Fox?

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When Jason Giambi homered in the bottom of the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium Wednesday night he pulled the Bronx Bombers to within eight runs of the Boston Red Sox. At roughly the same time the New York Mets were coming back from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the Philadelphia Phillies 6-3.

Yet the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, better known as ESPN, wouldn’t switch games.

The network, along with MLB’s Saturday broadcast partner Fox, is oft-criticized for an East Coast Bias and a love affair with the Yankees/Red Sox series. And while watching 236 Boston/New York games a season sometimes gets more than a little nauseating, ESPN could justify the decision for most of the past decade by pointing at the standings. It’s been more than a decade since the Yankees missed the playoffs and Boston, in the last half-decade, has overtaken them as the powerhouse of Major League Baseball.

But this year the Yankees are seven games behind Boston - not just for the division, but for a playoff spot as well. And the Red Sox, while ahead in the Wild Card race, trail Tampa Bay in the AL East and are being chased more by Minnesota than New York.

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A lawsuit filed by Major League Baseball Advanced Media aimed at protecting the league’s game statistics from fantasy sports companies may have inadvertently provided those same fantasy sports outlets with the ability to use names and images for their college fantasy football games.

CBSSports.com last month announced that it has launched an all-new version of its College Fantasy Football game, “continuing to be the only major fantasy sports service provider with a collegiate fantasy football game.”

CBSSports.com originally released the game in 2005. But the controversy this year is that for the first time, it will use real, individual player names rather than listing school and position, such as “FLORIDA QB” or “MICHIGAN RB”.

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