Americas Pastime
Has America’s pastime changed? You can make a strong argument that it has. Baseball has long held the spot as “America’s Pastime.” I’m reading a book right now called “Playing with the Enemy” about baseball just before, during, and immediately following WWII. It’s interesting to see how differently Americans viewed baseball then, 50-60 years ago. Back then, we had traveling baseball teams that toured around and played in front of the troops just behind the front lines to entertain the troops. Baseball to them was patriotic and what set Americans apart from other countries. Nowadays, I’m not sure baseball is even second on our minds. It may not even be third. This is a football culture now. This week, the Yankees clinched a playoff birth, the NL Wild Card is still up for grabs, the AL Central is going to come down to the wire, the NASCAR “playoffs” just started, the US Open in tennis just finished up, the Tour Championship is going on in golf and many more stories. But what do we care about? Mike Vick may start this week, the ongoing Meyer-Kiffin feud, Plaxico Burress goes to jail, and whether or not the Jets lied on their injury reports. I’m not a Yankees fan, I’m a Red Sox fan, but I think says clearly that our sports focus has shifted when ones of the lead stories on ESPN is who will and won’t start on Sunday (several days away) instead of the Yankees clinching a spot in the playoffs. There is still a lot of interest in baseball, but I think our sport attention spans and “we want it now” mentality. It will lead to longer NFL and NCAA seasons. In my opinion, baseball still has a chance. They need to make some changes though to keep from falling too far on the back burner of our minds. Now is the time. Football has taken over and shows no signs of slowing down. Right now, baseball, NASCAR, golf, basketball, everything is just something we follow in football’s offseason. Below are a couple suggestions that I think could baseball keep up with the NFL and NBA before things get out of hand. Over the last 40 years as football and basketball have overtaken baseball as our pastime, they’ve made changes. Steriods and pitching specialization aside, baseball hasn’t. Even being a traditionalist, I realize, some times you have to change. For baseball, it’s time.
1. Embrace technology. Sink millions into it. I read an interesting article in NetworkWorld this week about the Pittsburgh Penguins where they are streaming video, replays, and stats to fans with PDAs that are inside the arena. You need to do this and much more. Be creative and find ways to use technology in and around the stadium and as a way to interact with the fans between the games. I’m not just talking about some additional marketing with a lame Facebook page and some Twitter tweets, I mean really embrace the technology that is out there and flood the fans with it. They will love you for it.
2. Shorten the season. Not by much, but it’s way to long. 162 games. Our attention spans as a society have become way too short to keep up with anything for 162 games. It probably needs to be wrapping up the season or starting the playoffs when NFL kicks off. Can’t we tell who the best team is after 140 games? I know a lot of the single season records and career records would be skewed, but, we can’t compare one generation to the next now anyway, what difference will 20 games make?
3. Speed up the game. This has to be done. Our attention spans are way to short to see a play step out of the box 10 times during an at bat. Can you imagine a football team calling 10 timeouts during a drive? And don’t try to compare a huddle and play clock in football to stepping out of the box. Simple experiment, time the amount of time it takes between plays in football and the amount of time between pitches and change the rules until they match. And the commercial break between every half inning is an invitation to change the channel. Find other ways to advertise on the screen like soccer does and reduce the multitude of commercial breaks and between inning breaks.
4. Add a salary cap and a salary floor. It’s just not as fun if not everyone can compete. Currently, before the season even starts, you can name 5-8 teams that won’t even be in contention by the end of April. That doesn’t make the game intriguing to anyone, the fans, media or players. You could build a lot of excitement for the game (and ticket sales) if 25 teams are in contention in August instead of 10.
5. DH or no DH. Just make a decision already. Either both leagues have a DH or both don’t. Personally, people like to see higher scoring so I think you put a DH in both leagues. But it doesn’t matter, just make it the same.
NFL Blackouts
One of the stories this year in the NFL is an expected one, NFL teams are unable to sell out their stadiums and therefore several are faced with blackouts for the local viewing area. San Diego and Jacksonville could potentially not sell out a single game this year. Of course, NFL teams and their markets are blaming the economy and the recession on falling ticket sales, and asking the NFL to lift the blackout rules. But that’s not the issue. Hundreds of colleges sell out their games across the country and 32 NFL teams (most with smaller stadiums that college teams and in much larger markets) can’t sell out? No, the problem is basic economics. Supply and demand. Without a large capital investment to reduce or increase the amount of seating, NFL stadium capacity is for the most part fixed or static. So, supply of seats is inelastic. In that unique economic situation, the only way to increase demand is to reduce prices. NFL teams are unwilling to even consider this possibility, so, therefore, they don’t sell out and don’t make as much revenue from the large NFL TV contracts because the games are blacked out. If the average ticket price is $200 and you can’t sell them, basic economics says that by reducing the average price to $100, you can sell double the amount that you could sell at $200 because supply is inelastic. Any NFL team should easily be able to figure out the percentage of empty seats in the stadium that they need to fill to sell out and reduce average ticket price by that same percentage. Then every game is a sell-out and you maximize your local TV contract, NFL TV contract, concession sales, souvenir sales, parking lot fees, etc on down the line. I’ve heard several times in the past that because of the huge NFL TV contract and revenue sharing, no NFL team needs to sell a single ticket to be profitable. Might as well reduce ticket prices and get the most money you can, right? Another economic principle largely ignored by NFL teams is opportunity cost. That upper deck ticket that costs $80, unsold it makes you $0. Sold for $50, it makes you $50. I understand event security, parking attendants, etc all cost money and I’m not saying to operate game day as a loss, but not selling a ticket is far more expensive that selling it at a reduced price that barely covers expenses or breaks even. As kickoff nears, sell the remaining tickets cheap to radio stations, fan websites and blogs, and local business for them to give away as promotional items. They get a great marketing tool and you get a sold out stadium. Basically, the whole “the recession has caused us to not be able to sell out” argument several teams are making really irks me. You can’t sell out because you priced out the real fans years ago and now all those corporate sponsorships are drying up because they are cutting back costs. Time to go back to the real fans and start selling to them again, but remember, we can’t afford those hi-jacked prices you were charging to corporations.
MLB Trade Deadline
Can someone please explain the MLB trade “deadline” to me? How is it that teams are able to trade after it? There have been several trades in the recent weeks, like Scott Kazmir being traded to the Angels and I know Boston has made one as well. I’m sure I’m just missing something, but I’m really curious as to how these teams are allowed to continue to trade after the “deadline.”
Anyone know?
NFL Preview
NFC East
Philadelphia
NY Giants
Dallas
Washington
NFC North
Green Bay – Tie
Chicago – Tie
Minnesota
Detroit
NFC South can all the teams possibly finish 8-8?
New Orleans
Atlanta
Carolina
Tampa Bay
NFC West
Arizona – Could possibly win the division at 7-9
Seattle
San Francisco
St Louis
Wildcards: Chicago, NY Giants
AFC East
New England
NY Jets
Miami
Buffalo
AFC North
Pittsburgh – tie
Baltimore – tie
Cleveland
Cincinnati
AFC South
Indianapolis
Tennessee
Jacksonville
Houston
AFC West
San Diego – best regular season record in AFC
Denver – my sleeper team, I think they finish 9-7
Kansas City
Oakland
Wild Cards : Tennessee, Baltimore (Just missing out: Denver)
Super Bowl: New England vs. Green Bay
I’m torn on the NFC playoff picture. Right now, I have Green Bay, which I know is a popular pick, but I also really like Chicago and the Giants. I can see either of them making it to the Super Bowl as well and it’ll come down to matchups and weather in the playoffs.
Week 1 Review and Looking Ahead
So much for sportsmanship week! I’m guessing that’s not quite was the American Football Coaches Association had in mind. That’s why handshakes don’t work in football, players gets amped up, there are a ton of rivalries and traditions, the regular season means so much more because there isn’t a playoff system. You just can’t put that amount of players in front of each other all amped up before or after a game and expect nothing to happen. I thought it was a bad idea when I heard about it and I still think it’s a bad idea. The fact that we made it through the weekend with just a suckerpunch and not a complete riot on the field before a game, especially a game like Noles v Canes, we’re lucky.
Notre Dame vs Michigan this weekend. Both of these coaches need a win very badly. With big wins over cupcakes last week, this game sets nicely and despite not really caring for either team, I’m interested in the matchup this weekend because I think it will make a huge difference on the rest of the season for each team.
Blowouts – As usual, lots of blowouts in week one. Not only just in games against cupcakes, but in other games as well because some teams just aren’t as prepared as others. Here’s my suggestion for the NCAA regarding opening weekend. Let’s have everyone play FCS teams. Sure, almost every game will be a blowout, that’s why we aren’t going to count it toward the BCS standings and we aren’t going to count it in the overall record. That will give everyone a chance to hit and run the offense full speed against someone other than your own defense. Similar to the preseason in the NFL, the opening game would serve as a warm-up for the season, a chance to see what you have without much risk. The better teams could play their second and third teams the second half and get a better idea of how the depth chart should look like. But that’s it for the FCS team, after week 1, no one can play a FCS team the rest of the season. I’m also considering saying that in Week 2, no one is allowed to play league games and everyone needs to play out of conference. Since FCS teams are off the table after week 1, we’d get a ton of great games for week 2. In fact, we could even have a small incentive (like $5000/team) to play another school from a BCS conference.
ACC - Embarrassing. Ouch. Especially Virginia and Duke. And Maryland. Virginia and Duke lost to William & Mary and Richmond respectively! That is embarrassing. Last week, the ACC made the Big Ten look good.
Important games this week – Obviously, everyone is talking about USC-Ohio State. I’m thinking that I’ll be changing the channel by halftime, sorry Ohio State fans, I just don’t see how OSU is going to score on USC at all. I think UNC-Conn should be a good game and I’m hoping that the ACC can somewhat redeem itself. UCLA-Tennessee intrigues me and I think Tennessee pulls out a surprising win. I’m interested in the Mississippi State-Auburn game because like the Notre Dame/Michigan game, I think both teams need a win to give their teams confidence or it could be a long season for either team.
Mountain West Preview
Since the Mountain West is bound and determined to be a BCS conference without adding more BCS-quality schools, I thought I would do a quick Mountain West preview. I’m not as versed in the MWC, but plan on becoming more so, so next year, these should be more detailed.
1. BYU – On the strength of the offense, this year’s Utah
2. Utah – Won’t repeat last year’s season.
3. TCU – Could end up with just 2 losses.
4. Air Force – Great coach that gets a lot out of his teams
5. New Mexico – this is where they all start to run together
6. UNLV
7. Colorado State – around here is where you start to remember why they aren’t in the BCS
8. San Diego State
9. Wyoming.