On Wednesday it was reported (on Twitter) that Tuesday night’s KCAL 9 television broadcast of the game between the Dodgers and the Diamondbacks attracted the largest viewing audience for a regular season Dodger game on any local broadcast or cable outlet since a game between the Dodgers and Giants in August of 2007 when Barry Bonds was chasing Hank Aaron’s all-time home run record – 470,000 Southern California viewers to be exact. Ironically, a similar tweet was posted a day earlier about Monday’s PrimeTicket Dodger broadcast with a similar claim. Why the sudden increase in television viewership of Dodger games?

The Puig Factor.

There is no argument that the Dodgers playing exceptionally well for the past three weeks and being on the verge of taking over first place in the NL West has had a huge impact on the increase in television viewership, but it is absolutely impossible to deny that the emergence of Yasiel Puig has had more to do with it than anything else. Every true baseball fan around the world has been hearing about this kid since his record-setting spring training, and now that he has made it to the Big Show, they want to see him in action – and there is action in every game that Puig plays in.

The Puig Factor is a lot more than just a T-shirt. It is a multi-million dollar goldmine for television and marketing companies and for the Dodger franchise itself. (Image courtesy of Dodgers.com)

The Puig Factor goes far beyond just the increase in television viewership, it has also had a huge impact on marketing and merchandising – to the tune of millions of dollars. According to Dylan Hernandez of the L.A. Times, Puig merchandise  (T-shirts, jerseys, etc.) became the hottest selling individual Dodger player merchandise of all time after Puig’s first week in the Big leagues. This is absolutely incredible when you consider that this includes former Dodgers Manny Ramirez, Fernando Valenzuela and Hideo Nomo and current Dodgers Matt Kemp, Clayton Kershaw and Andre Ethier. No other player in the history of the game has had this happen before – not even Mike Trout or Bryce Harper.

As usually happens when a new superstar baseball player comes on scene, Puig is getting a lot of negativity from opposing teams and even more so from opposing fans. It happened last year with Trout and Harper. Puig receives harsh boos from fans at every away stadium that the Dodgers travel to, in some cases by the very fans who push and shove and stumble over one another to get an autograph from Puig before the games. Why? Because fans are jealous that these incredibly gifted athletes and potential future Hall of Famers are not on their team – it’s as simple as that.

Even though opposing fans are secretly blown away by what they are seeing from Puig, they are quick to let him have it should he strike out or make a base running gaff simply because he is not wearing their team’s colors – and that’s perfectly okay and comes with the territory. But even though Puig’s batting average finally slipped under .400 for the first time since his arrival to the Big leagues, and regardless of the incessant booing from jealous non-Dodger fans, every true fan of the game knows that they are watching history in the making and they can’t get enough of Yasiel Puig or the Puig Factor – even if they refuse to admit it.

It’s no secret that Puig’s aggressive style of play doesn’t sit well with many opposing players, coaches and managers, but I can guarantee you that there isn’t one of them who wouldn’t love to have Puig on their team, nor a front office that wouldn’t relish in millions of dollars being generated by the Puig Factor.