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Playoffs are a sports fan’s heaven. It’s the time of the season where players push their injuries, excitement and intensity of the sport build to a climax, and fans pay up the nose to catch a glimpse of the action. So more of a GOOD thing must be a GREAT thing, right? Wrong.

Major league baseball’s collective bargaining agreement expires after next season. With the expiration approaching, there’s talk and support, even amongst the players’ association, for expansion of the MLB playoffs. Currently, 8 teams out of 30 qualify for the playoffs every year. The discussed proposal would call for additional teams to qualify as well as expanding the initial Division Series to a best of 7 games (it is 5 games currently).

Bud Selig, the so called innocent baseball commissioner that was completely unaware of the rampant use of steroids in the 90’s and early 2000’s, is heading the movement, "I'm intrigued by that and we'll talk about it," Selig said on ESPN Radio. "We only have eight teams, the least of any sport, so even if we went to 10 teams, we wouldn't be abusing anything."

Abuse? How did we get to talking about abuse? Shouldn’t Selig be pushing and selling this to fans as a grand, innovative tweak instead of a defensive front? In business language, Selig was saying this, “There’s more juice left in this orange. It’s not as pure as the rest of the juice, but since it’s not unethical, given today’s business practices, we’re going to squeeze it some more and sell it.”

Without a doubt, baseball is a for profit business. And yes this will lead to additional revenue. But is it the smartest move baseball can make even from a financial standpoint? I believe it is not.

The change doesn’t lend itself to meshing well with the average sports fan.

More isn’t always better. Ever been to a Super Bowl party? Of course. Ever been to a World Series party? Probably not. Why? You might say well Football and Baseball are different sports, you can’t compare the two and Football is more popular. But why is Football more popular? And if it is, shouldn’t Baseball try as much as possible to imitate Football?

Fantasy Football is the most popular fantasy sport. Why? Because it’s only once a week and that day is on a weekend. As I once heard someone say before, “it takes away the aftertaste of church.” The point being here, in this age of technology, people have poor attention spans. Look at me, I’m writing this while in class. Baseball gets complaints about being too slow of a game. The fact that the World Series will extend into November this year is ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong. More baseball, I’ll watch. But if baseball is going to grow it has to attract a larger fan base. There are diehards with every sport but catering only to them is a bad business decision for the sport overall.

A salary cap is the next step Baseball needs to make. Having the Yankees in the World Series every year may not be BAD for TV ratings but it’s BAD for the growth of the sport which should be the ultimate goal.

- MB

Labels: Baseball, expansion, MLB, playoffs, wild card, Yankees