I was just looking at the postseason schedule so I could better plan my month, and I realized that we’ve got at least one game in November. Apparently this is only the second time that’s happened, the first time being 2001, when the season was temporarily suspended because of the September 11th terrorist attacks.
So, I understand why November baseball in 2001, but why in 2009?
Because the powers that be are more interested in TV money than in baseball.
Sorry, you’ve whooshed me there… what exactly do you mean? They spread the games out more over the season?
The World Baseball Classic. It ran until March 23 and pushed opening day back to April 6. Opening day in 2008 was March 30. This pushed the playoffs into November.
Ahhh… ok thank you!
They schedule and stretch out the postseason games so that they can maximize TV money.
But I don’t think they only started becoming interested in money since last year, so I think the WBC had something to do with it.
Money.
Where do they stretch it out? The LCS starts after one day of rest after the Divisional Series. The World Series starts after two days of rest. I guess you could say those two days of rest were to maximize the TV audience - are there more people watching TV on Wednesday than there are on Tuesday? I dunno.
What drives me crazy is the way they schedule the opening round playoff games (the division serieses) so that each game has its own separate TV window, that is, no game is played at the same time as any other game. It is just nuts. No one in the real world has enough time to watch every inning of every game of the opening round, so that might as well do what they do for the opening rounds of the NBA and NHL playoffs and schedule games at simultaneous times. But no, they schedule only 3 games at most per day which results in a dragged out into November World Series, which as I said, is nuts.
Nah. Baseball ALWAYS starts on the first Monday in April. The March 30 start was the Japanese series, so it doesn’t really count.
There is a 5 game ALDS that will take 8 days. There’s no reason to have more than 2 off days in there, and really, just 1.
Yeah, but there is another game on that last Wednesday, so it’s not like they’re extending the schedule an extra day.
I mean - I’m sure the actual structure of the playoffs is designed to maximize ratings, and the networks know exactly which days are going to see the best audiences, etc., and the schedule is set to meet those expectations.
I wonder if the regular season was stretched by a week or so of more Mondays scheduled off to get the playoffs this late?
Nah. The Japanese game was on March 25. March 30 was opening day in the Nationals new ballpark.
Opening day is typically very close to April 1. This year it was 6 days later. This was due to the WBC. Because of this Game 7 of the World Series is scheduled for Nov 5, instead of a more-typical Oct 30.
One can argue (and I do) that the post-season series are too spread out. Also, that double-headers should be scheduled during the regular season.
But neither of those policies are new, nor are they the reason that this season stretches into November.
Hm. I’m wrong. Odd. Still, I don’t think the WBC was at fault. The 2006 season started on April 3, with the WBC, too.
The 2006 WBC ran from March 3-20. The MLB season started on April 3. The WS started on Oct 21.
The 2009 WBC ran from March 5-23. The MLB season started on April 6. The WS is scheduled to start on Oct 28.
Seems like the WBC explains the delayed start of the season (when compared to 2006). They must have done something to speed things up then, because there is another 4 day delay this year compared to that. I’m guessing they compressed the earlier rounds of the post-season in 2006 (fewer off-days could explain 2 of those days, at least).
Does anybody recall what was done in 2006 to get the post-season in before November?
Well, again, they significantly expanded the post season 2 years ago. They moved the World Series start date from a Wednesday to Friday last year. They added extra off days. That’s all a very specific plan, not an accident. And the season is going to start on a Monday no matter what, so the WBC didn’t really delay things: the season still started on the first Monday of April. That’s almost always the case.
They could get the WS back to mid-October if they just went back to Sunday doubleheaders like they used to play. Even if each team played just 4 home and 4 away doubleheaders, they could shorten the season by a week and only cost each team 4 home dates.
What I hate about postseason baseball are the late starts. Maybe they get better ratings later but in the long term it’s nuts. It’s hard to groom the next generation of fans when they can’t stay up on a school night long enough to see the ends of postseason games.
They moved start times earlier this year for the World Series.
Really a just fluke of the calendar, same reason why Labor Day was Sept. 7th this year…that’s as late in the year that Labor Day ever happens.