Throughout the championship series, baseball has made some interesting timing decisions. It doesn’t take a genius to see which of the remaining four teams has the biggest fan base. Baseball doesn’t need to give the Dodgers any more service anyway, but from a serious business standpoint, they should work to make the Los Angeles market the best it can be.
The Yankees are the greatest team in baseball, but the Dodgers are right behind them. In no universe would baseball ever allow the Yankees to play outside of primetime, and you’d think the Dodgers would be the same. But somehow, with the ALCS and NLCS games scheduled at the same time on Monday, the 8:00 p.m. game went to the Guardians-Rays game.
I’m from Cleveland, so I’m not complaining about the primetime slot, but this move makes no logical sense. The Dodgers and Brewers have been the two best teams in baseball all season; this series will get more attention than anything the AL can feature, especially when the ALCS will rely on small ball and what many see as a less attractive version of the sport.
But let’s think about it from a fan’s perspective. The first pitch of the semifinals for teams in the central and western time zones took place at 17:00 and 15:00 local time. No major US sport would do something so stupid, but for a sport like baseball, it makes no sense.
MLB is defined by regional fanbases, which tend to cross over between fanbases. People watch their favorite teams and sometimes go to other games. Sports should make it as easy as possible for these fans to watch games, even if it means overlapping games.
With the Series switching cities, baseball made a smart adjustment and allowed the West Coast game to get a late slot, but that has now created a whole new issue. The guards made a difference in less than a day, they withdrew the first pitch from 18:00 to 13:00 due to inclement weather.
This decision would make more sense if the chance of rain is above 50% more than four hours after the previously scheduled first voting time. Regardless of when the games are played, there will be terrible weather on Thursday. Surprisingly, during the month of October, outdoor sports in Cleveland will have terrible weather. Now you’ve penalized any Cleveland fan who bought tickets before because they now have to find a way to get off work to even attend this game.
And perhaps the biggest problem is how baseball handles ticket prices. We saw in Tampa for games one and two that the stadium was pretty empty. At some point, greedy owners will stop overcharging fans because they think the playoffs should make tickets so expensive.
Cleveland was already struggling to sell out a 6:00 p.m. game, but now it’s going to be a nightmare to sell out a 1:00 p.m. game. Also, MLB was able to release more cheap tickets for the Guardians after the time change. Maybe you should have already had tickets at that price instead of hounding your loyal fans who bought tickets at twice the current market price.
But that’s how baseball works. The sport is finally growing again, fan interest is at record highs, and this will be the last stretch of baseball for the next year.