Gaining In Importance: MLB Taking Draft To New Jersey, Primetime

MLB yesterday said it has shifted the format, locale and broadcast schedule for its annual First Year Player Draft, which this year is scheduled for June 9-11. After two years at Disney's Wide World of Sports complex in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, over two days and televising the initial rounds on ESPN2, the event now will expand to three days and shift to Secaucus, New Jersey, where MLB Network will televise the first day of the draft from its own Studio 42. The first day also will shift to primetime for the first time, beginning at 6:00pm ET. Days two and three will be covered on MLB.com with a live pick-by-pick stream, draft tracker, scouting reports and other content. The '07 televising of the MLB Draft was a first for the sport, and MLB Net President & CEO Tony Petitti said, "When we started plotting out our programming schedule, the First-Year Player Draft was definitely one of the dates we circled on the baseball calendar." The Nationals hold the first pick in the '09 draft and are expected to select Scott Boras-represented P Stephen Strasburg of San Diego State Univ. (Eric Fisher, SportsBusiness Journal). In L.A., Bill Shaikin wrote the move "could be nirvana for baseball junkies" (LATIMES.com, 4/28). FANHOUSE.com's Andrew Johnson writes, "It seems fairly clear, at least to me, what [MLB] is trying to do here. It is trying to turn its draft into an event in the same vein ... as the NFL Draft. That is why in less than three years it has gone from a conference call to a television broadcast to a prime-time affair." But Johnson wonders, "Doesn't this seem like overkill? There is more interest in the draft now, but it will never remotely approach its cousins in the NBA and NFL for a number of reasons" (FANHOUSE.com, 4/29).

PICK & PULL: In Boston, Michael Silverman wrote the NFL Draft is a "glaring example of how the NFL has it right and MLB has it wrong." Allowing the trade of draft picks, which MLB does not, is "one of the best and brightest ideas in sports." MLB has its "feet stuck in a 20th-century cement block when it comes to keeping its annual June draft as is." The prospects of MLB "ever allowing trading of draft picks are dim, based on the stance of its current leadership." MLB owners are "OK with the idea, only if draft signing bonuses are capped, and everybody knows that the MLB Players Association does not do salary restrictions." MLB Exec VP/Labor Relations Rob Manfred: "We will only get to the trading of draft picks in baseball when clubs know that their draft pick is going to cost 'X' amount of dollars" (BOSTON HERALD, 4/26).