Well that was one hell of a baseball game last night. You had pressure-packed pitching, outstanding defensive plays, benches clearing after a dirty play, and high-tension drama that ended in 13-innings. Too bad hardly anyone saw all of it.
As someone who gets up for work at 2:45 am, I knew there was no way I was going to watch any of last night’s Brewers/Dodgers game as soon as I saw the first pitch wasn’t until 8:04 pm. Better to be in bed and catching some z’s before it starts than to think that I was just going to watch a few innings and then be able to sleep. Based on my Twitter timeline this morning, all of that stuff I mentioned before happened after 11:00 our time. The game itself didn’t finish until 1:15 am Central Time. Where else could you get five hours and fifteen minutes of constant drama like that? Unfortunately all taking place after almost everybody had joined me in bed.
There is absolutely no reason that our sporting events have to start so late. Yes, the game was in Los Angeles in the Pacific Time Zone. But baseball is a daytime sport meant to be played in the sun. Yesterday, they could have played the Astros/Red Sox game in Houston with a 1:00 local start time and the Brewers/Dodgers in LA at a 2:00 local start time. That would have meant first pitch here in Wisconsin at 4:00–and a conclusion to an epic game at 9:15–still early enough for the kids (and early-rising adults) to get a decent night’s sleep.
The idea that all of our sporting events need to take place in TV prime time in all time zones is an antiquated idea based upon the belief that the only way people consume TV is still in their living rooms after work. Mobile devices and the internet have made viewing of everything ubiquitous. All of the Brewers fans that went to bed at midnight or earlier last night would have had no problem catching early inning action on their phones or on half their computer screens at work before 5:00 yesterday–and the exciting conclusion sitting on the couch. And all the same prescription drug commercials that make up every break between innings could have been streamed to them–along with the annoying “Hey Google Assistant, why does everyone hate Joe Buck?” in-game questions.
Ten or twenty years ago, “everything at night on TV” made sense, because that was the only way to watch. Now if networks want to capture the most eyes possible, why not hold your major sporting events at times when all of them are open?
