November 26, 2008
How Will Baseball Respond to the Economic Crisis?
By Steven StarkSeveral weeks ago, we wrote about how hard economic times often force sports to make creative changes that end up improving the game so as to bring in more revenue. That, after all, is what happened during the Great Depression.
Over the next few weeks or so, we’ll look at what some of those changes might be for the major sports. (For purposes of speculation, we’ll assume no labor or contract objections from networks or others that, admittedly, could well arise.) This week? Baseball.
Last week in the New York Times, Bill Rhoden wrote how baseball seems recession proof. Didn’t Morgan Stanley say that about house prices too, about a year ago?
If the economic crisis continues, of course baseball will be hit – just as it was in the 1930’s when attendance dropped precipitously. In response, the sport will attempt to adapt, just as it did then, in an attempt to increase its popularity. The good news? Of all the major sports, baseball’s minor problems are the easiest to solve. The bad news? Its long-term problems are the most difficult.
Short-term, major league baseball may appear healthy enough to withstand even the toughest downturn. But it’s clear its post-season product – which should be its biggest moneymaker -- is in a bit of trouble. The “fall classic” has become the “late fall classic,” causing scores of weather problems. And the World Series seems anti-climactic after all those playoff games before, with subsequent declining ratings.
The solution? Cutting the number of regular season games to shorten the season won’t work because that will decrease revenue, as will traditional doubleheaders. But scheduling ten day-night doubleheaders a year for each team – on alternate Saturday nights – would reduce the season by a key two weeks and maybe more. So, let’s play two!
What about the endless length of games, which especially at playoff and World Series time, drive away many east coast viewers and kids who like to go to bed by 11 pm? Speed the game up. One of the major changes in baseball over the past 50 years has been how the same nine-inning game now takes so much longer to play.
In response, the baseball powers could cut the time of field changes and at bats (only allow batters to step outside the box once). For pitching changes, they could eliminate managerial and catcher trips to the mound and force the team to change hurlers in two minutes or less. Who really needs a warm up when you’ve already been practicing in the bullpen?
Even with these changes, however, the World Series will still lack pizzazz. Why? Well, the uniqueness of the fall classic used to be that it matched two teams from two leagues that never played during the season. Who really knew what would happen when these rivals faced each other for the first time?
Now, that’s all been lost as MLB indulges in regular season interleague play. And, after a number of years, the World Series has lost its allure. Let’s get rid of interleague matchups: Would Indians fans really rather see the Pirates than the Twins? If baseball doesn’t want to go this far, keep the 3-game series between rivals (White Sox-Cubs, etc.) and eliminate the rest.
Even if baseball adopts all these innovations, however, it still won’t increase its market or appeal all that much over the long run. That’s because the major avenue open to sports in the 21st century to increase revenue, as gates and audiences drop, is to go international -- with marketing and television, if not with teams. And baseball has very few opportunities open on that score.
Simply put, most of the world doesn’t play or like baseball. And those that do – outside the Far East –don’t tend to be in countries with developed markets and a lot of money. Major league baseball could stage a real World Series against the Japanese champion but the hunch here is that while the Japanese would care and watch, no one in the U.S. would.
As to increasing baseball’s international appeal, that’s unlikely if only because cricket – its principal competitor – has suddenly discovered the 21st century, bypassing the 20th. In the last five years or so, one-day and even shorter 20/20 cricket have caught on all over the world. Though provincial Americans will never believe it, if there are places ready to be conquered by a bat and ball game, they’re now likelier to go for cricket – with its full slate of country vs. country matches and an exciting new league just launched in India.
So, if attendance and TV sponsorship begin to desert baseball for economic reasons, of all the major sports, it can do the most initially but the least in the long run. This sport’s powers-that-be should hope the downturn is blissfully short.
Next: Football
