MLB recently "kicked off an economic impact study of the ramifications of lopping games off the schedule," according to Jayson Stark of ESPN.com. The 30 team owners can figure out the "impact on the numbers and the record books" at "some other time." Stark: "But the impact on their cash flow? Now that's something they care about." If baseball "goes from 162 games per season to 154, that works out to four lost home dates for every team, and 120 altogether." But just because every team "loses the same number of games doesn't mean every team would lose the same amount of money." Some of the revenue lost from tickets, food, drink and merch sales "would get recouped because there would be no game-day workers to pay," but "we're still talking a couple of hundred million lost dollars." Yet making up the money lost on a shortened season, even at the gate, "wouldn't be as hard as teams would like us to believe." One team source said, "We'd be losing 5 percent of our schedule. So say you have a 5 percent ticket-price increase. That could even be below inflation. It's not that much." Stark noted clubs could "insert those increases into full or partial season-ticket packages, premium-seat costs or dynamic-pricing options so quietly that most people would never even notice." In a sport where ticket money "accounts for a smaller percentage of total revenues than ever," the league's biggest worry "may just be its TV partners." But as long as there are still games "played every Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesday, ESPN, Turner and Fox will still have plenty of programming." Cutting the regular-season schedule "at least raises the possibility of adding more games to the postseason." But local TV deals "could be another story" (ESPN.com, 5/22).
LESS IS MORE: ESPN.com's Jerry Crasnick noted MLB's season "has variously been described as a marathon, a grind, and a physical and mental endurance test, with killer travel, early morning hotel check-ins, day games after night games and off-days filled with charity golf tournaments as part of the tableau." Players have been "loath to complain because they know the public reaction will be dismissive or downright hostile." But now that MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred "has weighed in with his thoughts, players have some cover in claiming that 162 games in 183 days is an antiquated concept." D-backs P and MLBPA Exec Sub-Committee member Brad Ziegler said, "We all signed up for this. But at the same time, it's tough to be at your best when you have 20 days off over a six-month span." He expects that the decision will "ultimately boil down to economics when it's raised in collective bargaining toward a new labor deal" in '16 (ESPN.com, 5/22).
