More Hope

I understand the point of Gerald Schifman’s article on increased in-season competitiveness in Major League Baseball, but I don’t buy the idea that Bud Selig was the driving force behind it.

As Major League Baseball’s newly full-fledged steward, Selig wanted to infuse into baseball his Hope and Faith Theory. That meant inspiring belief in as many fans as possible that their teams could be postseason-bound. It couldn’t just be rooters of the dynastic (and at the time, financially robust) Cleveland, Atlanta and New York Yankees franchises who could feel a World Series within reach; fans throughout the country needed to be invited to the season-long party, with as many squeezed into the ballroom as could comfortably fit. A competitive climate, Selig argued, would mean more butts in stadium seats, more eyes fixed to game telecasts, and more profits flowing through the game.

Resoundingly, this monetary endgame was achieved, as MLB has become a financial powerhouse. The league now pulls in $10 billion per year on the strength of swelling attendance, massive television contracts, lucrative new ballparks and a flourishing digital arm in MLB Advanced Media. MLB’s standing as a Chris Traeger-like picture of good health seems to warrant Selig’s place as one of MLB’s greatest-ever commissioners. But the vast revenues don’t directly reflect how well Selig accomplished the Hope and Faith target he laid out 16 years ago. No doubt, there is greater competitiveness in baseball today than in 2000, but we don’t really know the extent of the upturn. To address how well Hope and Faith have been built and sustained through baseball’s six-month season and across multiple years, we need a new tool.

By 2000, the first wild card playoff structure was in place. At the same time, Selig was pooh-poohing the idea that the Athletics were onto something with Moneyball, that smart, small market teams could be competitive. Selig, after all, is a progressive, who believes only a smart person telling the idiots what to do makes things better. Oakland could not be doing well except by dumb luck, because Selig didn’t decree it. Adding layers of playoffs is an old idea. Redistributing money is an old idea.

What was new was MLBAM. The history of baseball is full of examples of the game failing to use new media to increase the popularity of the game. MLB resisted radio and television at first, since they thought it would cost attendance at the park. Instead, by bringing the game to more people, more people wanted to go to the ballpark. MLB did not make that mistake with the internet, and the money flowing to all teams from MLBAM does a great job of leveling the playing field.

from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2josqlN