It Ain't Changing

Throughout the early baseball season, there's been plenty of talk about expansion and how the season will be adjusted once those two new teams join the Majors.  There's also been plenty of talk about the schedule and the early-season weather in Northern cities.  There have also been numerous suggestions for how to "fix" the scheduling "problem," which are pretty much all the same.  Shortening the season.

Most of these "solutions" are rooted in the same general idea.  Since the weather isn't good in some places at the beginning of April (or, this season, the last week in March), if the season were to start later, the weather would be better.  And the only way to start later without also ending later would be to start later.  There's also a similar school of thought that the season is "too long," which would also be "solved" by shortening the season.

Here's the counterpoint to the idea that the season is "too long": the MLB regular season, from start to finish lasts 183 days.  It used to be 162 games in 179 days, but extra off days were built into the 2022 CBA, moving the start of the season from Monday to midweek, with Opening Day potentially ending up in March depending on when April 1 is (and, more importantly, working back from the last potential date for Game 7 of the World Series).  The postseason lasts a maximum of 36 days total, with each team getting a number of off days built into that.  That's a total of just over seven months to play the entire regular season and playoffs.

Contrast that to the NBA and NHL.  Both seasons run concurrently and are basically the same length.  This season, the NHL started on October 7 and ends on April 16 (with a three-week Olympic break).  The NBA started on October 21 and ends on April 12.  Then the playoffs in both run until mid-June.  That's a six-month season, followed by two full months of playoffs!  Sure, they don't play every day and there aren't as many games, but that doesn't change the fact that the NHL and NBA seasons are actually longer than the MLB season!  Yet nobody is clamoring that they "need" to shorten either of those!  The NHL, in fact, is increasing the number of games from 82 to 84 next season!

One of the common arguments made by those who say the MLB season is "too long" is based on the idea that they play "too many games."  Would these people still feel that way if the season started and ended at the same time, but teams had more off days?  Because that's literally the only real difference between the MLB season and the NHL/NBA seasons (which are just as long)!  In baseball, they play pretty much every day for six months.  In hockey and basketball, they don't.

And how is 162 games "too many?"  They've been playing a 162-game schedule in the American League since 1961 and in the NL since 1962.  If the owners or players felt that was too many games, they wouldn't have had that be the standard season length for more than 60 years!  So, really, the suggestion that it "should" be shorter is really that writer admitting they either don't like baseball or they simply don't have a long enough attention span to follow/watch a team every day for six months.

There are also the common complaints about interleague play among the "too long" crowd.  Those are the games these people would like to see eliminated in order to get their shorter schedules.  Interleague play has been around for 30 years.  It's not going anywhere!  Especially now that teams play each of the other 29 franchises every season (which is something that the owners specifically wanted leading into the 2023 schedule change).  You try to take any of those interleague games away, you're getting resistance.

Not to mention the fact that the schedule is perfectly balanced and formatted for a 162-game season.  So, taking games away isn't as easy as it sounds.  It would actually make it significantly harder since there really wouldn't be a way to make the math even.  (When/if they do add two expansion teams, they would easily be able to plop them into the existing schedule template with minor adjustments.)

Among the "shorten the season" crowd, 154 games seems to be the common number.  Major League Baseball, of course, played 154 games for most of the first half of the 20th Century before going to the 162-game schedule.  When the schedule was first expanded, it was because of expansion.  Each league went from eight teams to 10.  That's 1/3 the size of the current Major Leagues!  And they were only playing the teams in their own league back then!  So, how does it make sense to have more teams play fewer games?  Just because 154 games is a historical number in baseball history (which is where they got it from) doesn't mean they "need" to go back to it for any reason whatsoever.

Reducing the number of games from 162 to 154 or any other number isn't going to happen.  Plain and simple.  There are a number of reasons for that, but they all come back to the same thing.  Money.  Fewer games means less money for the owners, which, in turn, means less money for the players.  Which makes playing fewer games a complete non-starter.

It may not sound like a lot.  Four fewer home games is one less series.  No big deal.  Right?  Wrong!  Think about the lost revenue, not just in ticket sales, from just one fewer home series for certain teams.  From parking, concessions, merchandise sales, etc.  No, it wouldn't make a difference to the Marlins or the A's or the Pirates.  It would be a huge difference for the Yankees or the Dodgers or the Red Sox.

Logic dictates that if the owners aren't bringing in as much revenue, they'll spend less.  Which will lead to players having to settle for less-lucrative free agent deals.  If they even get deals at all.  What seems more likely is that veteran players would suffer the most since teams would end up going with younger, cheaper players instead.  Which is something the MLBPA obviously wouldn't be too happy about.

Not to mention the broadcasters.  MLB's TV contracts were made based on a 162-game schedule.  So, there would need to be some make-good provisions to keep the broadcast partners happy.  Those would probably come at the expense of teams' local broadcasters, which are still lucrative for some franchises.  Not to mention their main source of revenue they don't need to share.  Moving forward, a shorter season would mean that all of those broadcast contracts potentially become less lucrative.  Which is even more money out of the owners' pockets.

So, whoever has those visions of a 154-game season in their heads needs to get them out.  Because, for the financial reasons alone, it's not happening!  There's also literally no one actually involved in Baseball actually clamoring for it.  Not the Commissioner's Office.  Not the owners.  Not the players.  Just some bored writers who want to "fix" something that isn't broken.