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if MLB made a "battle for 3rd place" series between NYY and Philly...


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Start with the proposition that American sports fans can watch only so much product. The Steelers/Saints outdrew them last night, and Colts/Texans will tonight too. Suspect but don't know for sure that some college game outdrew the World Series Saturday.

The games are on too late.the NFL plays games at 1PM and the Super Bowl starts at 6:20PM eastern, so at a loss why MLB thinks starting at almost 9PM eastern for a 3+ hour game makes sense.People in the east are either not bothering to watch at all or go to bed during the game unless their team is in it.Don't care who you root for, if your team is not in it, you are not going to make that investment of time.

Games takes forever.You could insist batters not step out every pitch. You could tell pitchers to throw the ball to get a cheap strike and not grant time top batters. Doing that once or twice a game will have hiiters ceasing that stupidity. You could limit catchers' visits. You could cut commercial between innings.

And the season is too long. Selig's solution is starting in 2011 to start in March. That means not only going up against the heart of college and NFL football, but also against March Madness. The MLB regular season should begin early April and end mid-September and the playoffs done my mid-October. 162 games are pretty pointless now that roids have played havoc on the record book and the lack of greenies make August and September look like a George Romero production. Make in a 144-154 game season and enough.

Instead Selig does nothing except hint at more playoff teams. So his big idea in more people ignoring bad September baseball like that stirring AL East Yankees/Rays race and March games played in blizzards. What a dick.

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^^ Good rant...Definitely agree that season should be over by mid-Sept. and playoffs should be out by mid-October. By the time the playoffs comes around and the WS comes around the MLB is competing with the NFL, college football, the NBA, and hockey...It'd be better for the game to shorten the season.

The problem with that, of course, is that the owners want the revenue that comes with a 162 game schedule...Greedy f*cks.

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^^ Good rant...Definitely agree that season should be over by mid-Sept. and playoffs should be out by mid-October. By the time the playoffs comes around and the WS comes around the MLB is competing with the NFL, college football, the NBA, and hockey...It'd be better for the game to shorten the season.

The problem with that, of course, is that the owners want the revenue that comes with a 162 game schedule...Greedy f*cks.

Correspondingly, we would expect players to take a similar cut?

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Correspondingly, we would expect players to take a similar cut?

Probably not. In this instance fewer games don't really reduce income that much, especially if you cut out the last 2 weeks of September.After Labor Day, MLB crowds especially on weeknights and Sundays against the NFL are awful. Unlike the NFL, the network contracts with Fox and TBS only care about baseball's postseason, not so much about the regualr season. If you cut it back to 154, each team loses 4 gates and 8 games of local TV and radio revenue. Doubt we're talking major income,especially when the games you cut would be in September, going exactly against the NFL and college football. The income is probably negligible. In fact, ESPN would love not to have an MLB game on in September against an NFL game on NBC.

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Probably not. In this instance fewer games don't really reduce income that much, especially if you cut out the last 2 weeks of September.After Labor Day, MLB crowds especially on weeknights and Sundays against the NFL are awful. Unlike the NFL, the network contracts with Fox and TBS only care about baseball's postseason, not so much about the regualr season. If you cut it back to 154, each team loses 4 gates and 8 games of local TV and radio revenue. Doubt we're talking major income,especially when the games you cut would be in September, going exactly against the NFL and college football. The income is probably negligible. In fact, ESPN would love not to have an MLB game on in September against an NFL game on NBC.

There are tickets and other revenue streams that are sold now that will not be used. Of course that is income that the clubs will not have. If you expect them to argue otherwise, you are fooling yourself.

Any sport that has less games will reduce salaries accordingly. It is the law of economics.

Why do you think the days of the old doubleheadrers are gone?

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