Biggest problems in baseball and how to solve them

[caulfield12]

Attendance may get a lot of attention, but it's not among baseball's biggest problems. The biggest problems, in no particular order, are 1) re-establishing the World Series as a true national event rather than one that is strong regionally; 2) selling a handful of players as national, mainstream stars rather than regional favorites; 3) improving the pace of play so that the ball is put into play more often; and 4) resolving the stadium issues of Oakland and Tampa Bay.

 

Read More: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/mlb/news/.../#ixzz2V8c4grzL

[caulfield12]

You can't really make the World Series a SINGLE game or 2/3 or even 3/5, and make all the other post-season series shorter or sudden death, because that ruins (at the very least, cheapens) the longest season in professional sports.

 

Making it where 16 or more team (half) make the post-season...same issues, diluting the value of the regular season.

 

The World Baseball Classic was an attempt to go there...but that only works at the end of a season (not as a sort of spring training), and you have so many issues with agents, teams, contracts...about the teams playing, for example, after the end of the World Series, not to mention the fact that most of the best players in the world are already playing MLB in the first place. Then all the injury concerns about pitchers, lots of issues to resolve.

 

One issue that always comes up is the late starting times, specifically on the East Coast.

 

Not having any day/afternoon games that kids can skip school for or follow during the daytime...tv/broadcast ratings again.

 

The impossibility of making it similar to 16 game NFL (every single game is magnified, just like the Super Bowl)....diminished attention spans. Maybe some of that can be blamed on computer games/addiction to visuals, versus the patience for a 3 1/2-4 hour baseball game.

 

It seems they have to really find a way to connect to fans around the world through cell phones/internet/MLB.com, and the idea baseball translates to audio/radio better than any sport (especially car racing, golf or NHL).

 

 

[cabiness42]

The #1 problem is that MLB has allowed TV money to ruin the game. The playoff schedule is horrible because of TV, and the ridiculousness of having your favorite team blacked out every Saturday so FOX can force you to watch two teams you don't care about is insane.

 

The union needs to get on board with accepting less $$$ from the TV networks (which in turn lowers salaries) in order to get games on at reasonable times. No playoff game may start later than 7:30 pm local time in the timezone of the further East of the two teams.

 

Also, complete revenue sharing of local TV money.

[Balta1701]

The #1 problem is that MLB has allowed TV money to ruin the game. The playoff schedule is horrible because of TV, and the ridiculousness of having your favorite team blacked out every Saturday so FOX can force you to watch two teams you don't care about is insane.

 

The union needs to get on board with accepting less $$$ from the TV networks (which in turn lowers salaries) in order to get games on at reasonable times. No playoff game may start later than 7:30 pm local time in the timezone of the further East of the two teams.

 

Also, complete revenue sharing of local TV money.

In other words, no matter how much people complain about the World Series becoming a regional event...baseball doesn't need to "Fix" it because they're maximizing revenue from it.

[caulfield12]

In other words, no matter how much people complain about the World Series becoming a regional event...baseball doesn't need to "Fix" it because they're maximizing revenue from it.

 

 

 

Maximizing revenue in the short-term, but partially losing younger fans to the NFL and NBA because of it...

 

From observing Selig, it's clear he wants to expand more and more into Latin America (Mexico City, for example)...Asia...Europe's going to be a tougher sell.

 

You can imagine some kind of partnership with the Japanese Professional Baseball leagues to have a merger with MLB and keep a Pan Pacific Division in South Korea/Japan/China (made up mostly of Asian players)....and then one within Central/South America, for example, 2-3 teams in Mexico, 1-2 in Cuba, at least 1-2 in the Dominican Republic, 1 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, maybe a couple in Venezuela if that country ever becomes friendlier to the U.S. and less kidnapping-crazy, one in Cartagena/Baranquilla/Santa Marta in Colombia....then eventually into Brazil.

 

Heck, you could even imagine at least one in Taiwan, one in Hong Kong, one in Shanghai and one in Singapore eventually.

 

Manila would be another option, as that country's very Americanized, although they love basketball the most...their economy grew at a faster rate than China the last quarterly cycle.

 

So you'd have the best Asian MLB team play the best Latin American team, and then the winner would play the winner of the North American World Series...although some of the American and Latin American teams would face each other during the regular season as well.

Edited June 3, 2013 by caulfield12

[cabiness42]

In other words, no matter how much people complain about the World Series becoming a regional event...baseball doesn't need to "Fix" it because they're maximizing revenue from it.

 

Maximizing revenue in the short term isn't always the best long term plan.

[EvilMonkey]

Season is too damn long. Cut amount of games by 20%, and all salaries by same percentage. No reason to be playing baseball April 1st or to have playoffs around Halloween.

[Quin]

No marketable stars.

[caulfield12]

No marketable stars.

 

 

If Harper, Machado and Trout aren't it...

 

Or Verlander and Cabrera. Strasburg. Maybe Harvey.

 

 

MLB hasn't done a great job with marketing, it's not that there aren't any marketable players.

[Iwritecode]

Maybe convince ESPN that there are 28 other teams in the league...

 

 

[EvilMonkey]

Maybe convince ESPN that there are 28 other teams in the league...

 

 

yeah, right.

[Steve9347]

Season is too damn long. Cut amount of games by 20%, and all salaries by same percentage. No reason to be playing baseball April 1st or to have playoffs around Halloween.

I agree with this. There are only a handful of cities that have weather worth attending a game in April and October. Have the season start May 1st and have the playoffs end at the start of October. None of this March/April through November bulls***.

[caulfield12]

It's not helping that most of the star players for the Yankees are out or have been for most of the season...the Mets, Cubs, Sox, Angels and Dodgers are all struggling.

 

So that wipes out your 3 biggest media markets...although the Red Sox and Yankees are doing well for now, those regional teams like the Giants, Braves or Cardinals just aren't the draws.

 

Even Philadelphia was a more powerful draw in their heyday than the Cardinals, Giants or Rangers.

[flavum]

I'd cut two weeks off the regular season. Shorten the season to 156, for one week off, and schedule 3 doubleheaders per home team (6 total per team). If some small market teams want to have straight doubleheaders as a promotion, great. Otherwise, make them split doubleheaders. They've already made the rule about adding a 26th man for doubleheaders. They should have more of them and get the World Series over with by October 15th-20th.

[cabiness42]

Maybe convince ESPN that there are 28 other teams in the league...

 

It's part of the league-wide TV problem. ESPN shows 3-4 games per week. The Yankees and Red Sox get the highest ratings, so they have an incentive to show those two teams as much as possible. The effect is that nobody sees much of the other 28 teams, and when two of those other 28 teams make the World Series, nobody watches it because they don't know anything about those teams (that and the late start times). The problem is, ESPN doesn't show any playoff games so they have absolutely zero incentive to generate interest in the other 28 teams just so TBS and FOX can get better playoff ratings.

 

Fixing the TV situation goes a long way towards fixing all of the other problems. MLB needs to have more control over start times and what teams are being shown on TV, even if it means getting less money. And then all the money, national and local, needs to be split evenly among the 30 teams.

[Balta1701]

Just wondering to myself how this thread will look if the NBA, which relies much more heavily on ratings for its playoffs and championship series as a source of revenue, winds up with a Spurs/Pacers finals.

[caulfield12]

I'd cut two weeks off the regular season. Shorten the season to 156, for one week off, and schedule 3 doubleheaders per home team (6 total per team). If some small market teams want to have straight doubleheaders as a promotion, great. Otherwise, make them split doubleheaders. They've already made the rule about adding a 26th man for doubleheaders. They should have more of them and get the World Series over with by October 15th-20th.

 

 

 

154.

 

Tradition.