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Subject: Expansion? Seriously?
Posted by: Seattle Zen
- [301361318] Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 19:50
That guy who replaced Selig thinks that we should have 31 or 32 unfilled stadiums rather than 30.
"Maybe one of the reasons I got this job is, I'm bullish on this game," Manfred said. "I think we are a growth business, broadly defined. And over an extended period of time, growth businesses look to get bigger. So yeah, I'm open to the idea that there will be a point in time where expansion may be possible."
Just how broad of a definition would you need to honestly say that MLB is growing? Blue Hen is the youngest person to tweet or Facebook post his excitement about the All-Star game. People under 30 couldn't tell you a thing about baseball, who are the stars, who won the World Series last year, who holds which records. Attendance is down, ratings are in free fall. There are many influential people who think that soccer will surpass baseball in popularity in the next 40 years. And you want to ADD teams to this?
I love the idea of Montreal getting a team back. I also do not believe that Tampa/St. Pete's has shown that they can support a major league club. The least reported story in all of major sports, in my opinion, is the battle in baseball by the Giants to prohibit the A's from moving to San Jose. Solve that problem before doing anything else.
Baseball is becoming more and more like the Republican party: old, white men who are conservative in mindset. Take a listen to the fastest rising Rep. candidate for president and ask him and his followers what they think about a MLB team hailing from Mexico? I don't need a focus group of baseball fans to imagine what they would think about buying tickets to see their team play the Mexico City Spanish-named mascot squad.
Baseball is in trouble, expansion is a cynical money grab by the current owners that would add to their problems. |
| 1 | Seattle Zen
ID: 2903529
Tue, Jul 14, 2015, 21:12
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I'd love to see a Mexico City team owned by Carlos Slim and watch him splash his money around. He would have to seriously overpay free agents to convince them to play for him, but he could certainly afford it.
A lot of horrible stereotypes conservative white men hold about Mexico would be challenged simply by having their favorite old white baseball announcers spend a few weeks in Mexico City.
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| 2 | Bean
ID: 14147911
Wed, Jul 15, 2015, 00:19
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A lot of horrible stereotypes are held about old white men. The PC police are alive and well, so watch what you say about us.
I for one would like to see the MLB become international. Why not Mexico City, Havana, Sydney, Tokyo, Seoul? Baseball is already popular in these places.
What baseball needs more than expansion is parity though. Needs a salary cap system so that the Yankees, Dodgers and Redsox cant continue to buy championships.
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| 3 | weykool
ID: 472331022
Wed, Jul 15, 2015, 01:12
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You already killed off the politics forum with your censorship, now you are going to pollute the baseball forums with your nonsense? You have no clue what white men think so anything you post is just stereotypical ignorance.
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| 4 | Slizz
ID: 325491823
Wed, Jul 15, 2015, 07:42
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Au contraire, mon frère...
To quote Hardballtalk:
Just got the press release saying that Major League Baseball finished the 2014 regular season with 73,739,622 in attendance marking the seventh highest total of all-time.
Obviously “seventh best” is a tad misleading in that baseball has only had 30 teams for the past 16 years. Also, before 1993 the National League used to count actual butts in seats, not tickets sold, so there are some historical apples and oranges at play here. But it’s still pretty good attendance all the same. In all, baseball’s top ten season of attendance of all time have come in the past year.
The last weekend of the season featured the second best overall attendance of the year. Several games with playoff implications thanks to the addition of the second wild card can be thanked for that. As well as a lot of nice weather. Overall five teams topped the three million mark (New York Yankees; Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim; St. Louis Cardinals; San Francisco Giants; and Los Angeles Dodgers). Twelve drew over 2.5 million. The Pirates set a single season attendance record of 2.44 million. The Giants have 332 straight sellouts.
We can quibble with the numbers and the trends. But parks are generally more full then they used to be, even if they’re just a tad off peak. As far as the gate goes, the game is pretty healthy."
To your point about ratings...it depends what you're looking at. If you want to make an apples to apples comparison of the Fox national game or Sunday Night Baseball...then yes, it's losing popularity. However, if you dive deeper, baseball has never been healthier:
Forbes: Baseball Is Beating The NBA And NHL Playoffs In Local TV Ratings
"Wednesday was a playoff bevy for sports fans with playoffs in both the NBA and NHL, and a great baseball game nationally, but in 14 of 24 markets, it was not hockey or basketball or even that Mets-Cubs that people were watching, but Major League Baseball on their local regional sports networks.
In a sign that baseball continues to be a regional phenomenon, from Cincinnati to Seattle, Boston to Tampa Bay, Baltimore to St. Louis, and more, it was regular season baseball games that crushed all comers in their respective markets over the NBA and NHL playoffs, as well as the nationally televised MLB game on ESPN."
Last, they've been saying that about soccer for the past 40 years too...soccer will never be dominant in this country because it's nearly impossible to monetize it unlike the other sports via TV timeouts and what not.
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| 5 | Khahan
ID: 36645158
Wed, Jul 15, 2015, 09:46
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I would like to see some international play beyond Canada as well, Bean. But do you really want players traveling to Seoul Korea for a 3 game series, then coming back state side? That would be on hellacious grind.
Let MLB stay like it is - North America and maybe dip into Mexico and/or Havana or Puerto Rico. Outside of that I think the travel would be too demanding.
But outside of the MLB it would be nice to see something more done than just the World Baseball Classic every few years.
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| 6 | Seattle Zen
ID: 301361318
Wed, Jul 15, 2015, 12:43
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Slizz - can't agree with you there. As your first quote admits, baseball went from counting people in the seats to tickets sold. Some stadiums fill up no matter what - Boston, SF, Dodgers, Cubs, Cardinals, but most do not. And that Forbes story is a great example of cherry picking stats to create a storyline - a few markets on one Weds. night had great regional ratings compared to early playoff matchups. I'm a huge NBA fan and I didn't/wouldn't watch the Atlanta vs. DC series.
Finally, I remember 40 years ago and no one said soccer would pass up baseball someday. It wasn't until 1977 when Pele came to play for the Cosmos that soccer started capturing America's attention and it was manifested in youth soccer. Don't know when the total number of youth soccer participants surpassed the number of youth baseball, it was quite some time ago, unfortunately today, both sports participation has been declining for some time. I have no idea why you think soccer cannot be "monetized", it is already the most lucrative professional sport in the world by a long shot.
When I say that soccer may become more popular in the US in 40 years, I do not mean MLS, I don't ever foresee that occurring. I speak of US fans of foreign soccer. The future of international soccer is trending towards a superleague comprised of the best squads from around the world - Man U v. Barcelona, Bayern Munich v. Juventus, etc... I could certainly imagine an American public in 2055 where the every age group has far more soccer players than people who have ever played baseball or softball who will actually care more about that superleague than MLB.
I agree with Khahan, baseball could relocate to Mexico because the travel is manageable and the cities are within our four time zones. Unlike the NFL, MLB simply could not schedule a team across an ocean.
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| 7 | Bean
ID: 14147911
Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 01:09
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Lets say there were three teams in Sydney, Tokyo and Seoul. You could easily send teams on an annual road trip of 9-12 games in the those Pacific Time zones. Similarly, 2 week road trips could easily be the norm for the three teams in those time zones. Scheduling does not have to be that imaginative if there are three or more.
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| 8 | Khahan
ID: 54152322
Thu, Jul 16, 2015, 01:37
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What about TV deals? Jet lag for the players etc?
I dont the MLB as a world wide organization is viable. Also you have to consider countries like Japan have their own leagues and have deals with MLB already in place that would prevent this kind of expansion.
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| 9 | Toral
ID: 1753514
Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 09:39
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Baseball WAS in trouble -- 40 years ago. Cable TV has been its salvation. There was a time when much of the United States got ONE GAME A WEEK on National TV, Saturday afternoon. Players got hyped to play on it, as their autobiographies and oral histories attest. Now every MLB game can be seen somewhere. For the handful of games that aren't televised somehere, MLB.TV puts on its own "telecast".
Empty stadiums? Check attendance figures in the 1960s and 70s. Red Barber was fired after asking the TV cameras to pan Yankee Stadium and show its announced attendance of 413 one day in 1966.
Compare franchise valuations from then and now. Bob Lurie bought the Giants for $8 million in 1976. Current Forbes valuation; $2 billion.
It's true that baseball's demographics skew old and white (although *not* male, compared to other sports) but they aren't much different in that respect from the NFL, NBA and NHL. Baseball's health looks good for the foreseeable future. Thanx to cable, it can thrive, if as much a a glorified niche sport as a national pastime. And as long as FOX is willing to consider MLB a "prestige" have, its ratings don't matter.
MLB could easily handle another 2 teams, although I'm not enthusiastic about it.
About Mexico: if Carlos Slim or some equivalent is willing to pay the exorbitant expansion fee, baseball's old white owners (?) will accept it with both hands.
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| 10 | Perm Dude
ID: 431013412
Fri, Jul 17, 2015, 10:10
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Toral is right that surely the better metric for the health of baseball is revenue rather than just butts in the seats.
FWIW, I believe they will go back to Montreal the next chance they get.
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| 11 | filthy
ID: 4157202
Sun, Jul 19, 2015, 02:58
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32 team league. I'd do 8 * 4 team divisions. 54 games against your division. 84 games to cover every non-division team once (rotate home/away matchups year to year), and the remaining 24 based on strength of schedule year to year. An extra home and home against 4 teams of similar standing from other divisions. Sorta like football does it, with more of an interleague flavour.
As for teams, I could see the US market being too saturated and might be crazy but could really see a 4 team Caribbean division working out pretty smoothly. Two failing market teams moving there (and one moving to Montreal if the loonie ever strengthens), and two expanding. Say Mexico, Cuba, Dominican, Puerto Rico?? Majority of their home games against each other, every other team travels there in rotating years for one road trip of 3 game series with all the remaining games being spread out as evenly as possible. Cut into spring training time all they need to make the scheduling fit. Maybe even make the remaining 12 home games be part of an international tour where they're acting as home team. Have the other teams all sacrifice 12 home games to make it fair and really go in on the touring league theme, why not? Test the waters on other future international divisions. Already successful series staged abroad, why not expand on it.
Gradually move into Asia, South America and Europe to make it a nearly year round league and get the jump on the soccer superleague. Less focus on the day to day grind, and more on the year round grind. Make long road trips to chase the good weather the league wide norm. Get all the home games done annually in one stretch before moving on to the next region. Offseason would take a big loss, would still need a month or two at least- Nov/Dec off perhaps, as well as extend the allstar break, put more focus on it, strike while it's hot!
Tennis/golf/soccer have the jump by being around all year long, baseball might require larger rosters to make it happen but I don't think it's too outrageous to see something like that happening in 50 years perhaps. No spring training might backfire, but I'd take my chances for a scenario like that to unfold. Most guys going through the motions in spring waiting for the sun anyway. Union will be able to fight that scenario as long as the US markets can thrive, but it's fun to speculate. There's definitely global options if the US markets' interest levels fade though.
Just what I'd be considering if I had the vote. Pick apart as you see fit!
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| 12 | JeffG
ID: 2654157
Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 09:54
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Considering MLB was talking contraction just a decade ago, talking expansion does show the league health is on the rebound. I am not saying the business is booming, but I strongly disagree that baseball is in trouble.
BUT..... MLB should stay in the four time zones that cover most of North America, if for no other reason than the convience of the fans/viewers. Texas was complaining for years that they were at a tv revenue disadvantage when everyone in their division was two timezones away until MLB moved Houston. As an Easterner, I personally hate when my team is playing night games in the Pacific Time Zone, (even if the games are now 7 minutes quicker).
There is no need for Asian expansion of MLB, there are currently two professional Japanese leagues and a Korean league. (At least no one is arguing for Europe)
Also, I think divisions of four teams are too small and would really have to be convinced that would be a good thing without turning the MLB playoffs into the invite-practically-them-all basketball and hockey approaches.
Sure Montreal, Charlotte, San Antonio, Mexico City, Las Vegas could probably support an MLB team, but so could Oakland with a less cavernous ballpark and so could the Tampa area with a better located one, or Miami if they shut off their turnstyle approach to roster maintanence. The Carribean, including San Juan, is baseball crazy but may not have the market size to support a competitive MLB franchise and even the small market team owners would not want to share their revenue with these smaller markets. Also please don't go saturate the megasized NYC market by adding a team in Northern New Jersey. (It is bad enough I have to live among half the baseball fan population in the my own region being Yankee-haters). Yes, there are plenty of cities and regions to turn against one another in an expansion money grab to select two more franchises, but why?
Then again, that is just my 53 year old white male conservative perspective.
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| 13 | blue hen
ID: 10354414
Fri, Jul 24, 2015, 11:47
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Does geography even matter anymore? You can watch any team you want these days, and TV contracts are starting to dwarf gate revenues. Heck, they even played a game in front of nobody this season. No reason Topeka couldn't have an MLB team, if they could get a good TV contract.
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