Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Commissioner Sambard, part 1

The Yankees and Angels have each played three games in the last 10 days. By the time game 1 of the ALCS begins, they will have had four straight days off, despite the fact that both swept their first round series and could have, in theory, started their series yesterday. Game 7 of the World Series, if things go that far, is scheduled for November 5.

It seems we have a problem.

The ridiculous postseason schedule is just one of the things I would change if I somehow became commissioner of baseball, something that has about the same probability of happening as me jumping up and tipping the moon with my finger. Even though it won't happen, it's still fun to pretend what I'd fix.

In almost any sport, the end-of-the year championship is supposed to be the most exciting time of the year. All the fans who were ignoring the regular season or were following their own teams exclusively start paying attention when everything's on the line. The Super Bowl is the single biggest sporting day in America every year; the best professional championship is the Stanley Cup playoffs, played with a passion that exceeds every other championship; the nation's businesses take a multi-billion dollar financial hit every March as the NCAA basketball tournament starts up. But the World Series comes around, and baseball fans around the country yawn and flip over to a college football game. They lose interest.

The overriding reason the World Series has been ruined has been money. As television contracts have gotten bigger and bigger, the networks are starting to call all the shots. So that means later start times, more days off, and huge gaps between series.

Look at the schedule for this year's American League playoffs, using the Yankees as an example. Starting on October 7, the Yankees played games on a Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. Why was Thursday an off day when the there wasn't any travel involved? Since the Yankees swept, they are in the middle of four days off until Game 1, meaning that from the time the regular season ended on October 4 to Game 1, they will have played three games in 10 days. That's a football schedule, not a baseball one. Since both teams finished sweeps on Sunday, why couldn't they have started the ALCS on Tuesday? I don't think either team would have complained.

Looking at the schedule for the ALCS, there's the traditional off day for travel between games 2 and 3, and again between games 5 and 6. But there's also a day off between games 4 and 5? Again, why? Both teams will be in the same city, in the same hotel. There's no reason they need that extra day off. In fact, too many days off can hurt a baseball team, making them rusty for the next game.

The worst could be yet to come, though. The World Series will start October 28. That's a static, set-in-stone date that will only change if there's a weather delay that pushes it back a day. That means if both league championship series end as sweeps, the teams will each have had 8 full days off before the World Series starts. Any momentum they would have had from the postseason will be gone, most injury concerns they might have had will be solved.

In that scenario, how many fans will baseball lose in that week without games? Obviously, the fans of the participating teams will come back when the World Series starts up again, and the die-hard baseball fans in other cities will tune in as well. But the casual fans will be all but gone by the time the first pitch is thrown in Game 1. In fact, you could probably make the World Series just a regional telecast in the two participating cities, and baseball wouldn't see that significant of a drop in viewers.

The only thing that is improving in baseball's postseason scheduling is the time games start. All World Series games are starting 40 minutes earlier this year than they did last year, which is a good start. However, for many kids on the East Coast, all it means is that they get to watch a full hour of a World Series game rather than 20 minutes. That bought them, what, 3 innings? How is the sport supposed to attract new fans that way? So at least that aspect of things is improving.

Postseason scheduling has gotten out of hand since Fox started showing the games, so I'm putting a lot of the blame on Fox executives. They are far more concerned about making money than they are about ensuring people see the games, but that's their prerogative as a private business. It's up to Major League Baseball to step in and impose rules that any network has to live by if they want to televise the games. There's no reason it should take any playoff team a full month to play, at most, 19 games.

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