Love him or hate him, Bryce Harper is one of the biggest stars in Major League Baseball. He’s not necessarily the best player, but there’s no arguing that he is probably the sport’s most marketed player in terms of endorsements. In being so, the MLB should listen to what he has to say about growing the game not only in the U.S., but globally. Harper appeared on the Starting 9 podcast on Tuesday and brought up a couple of great points that you’d have to be a fool to disagree with.
Fix the blackout issue
MLB’s blackout issue is by far and away the league’s biggest issue in terms of growing the game. Living in the greater Los Angeles area, the only way I’d be able to watch Dodger games consistently is if I had Spectrum cable. Every once in a while, their games get broadcasted on national networks like ESPN and TBS, but outside of those few games, I’m shit out of luck. Sure I could switch my cable provider to Spectrum, but then I lose NFL Sunday Ticket…do you see my dilemma?
Another option is purchasing the MLB TV package, which is free for T-Mobile customers like I happen to be. Unfortunately, however, because of cable restrictions and such, local games are blacked out on MLB TV for me too! Riddle me this, MLB, what the fuck is the point of having MLB TV if you can’t even watch your local team’s games?? It might benefit the Dodger fan who just relocated to Chicago, but for 99% of fans who live in the same city as the team they root for, it’s useless. Luckily for me, I went to college out of state and was able to watch every Dodger game during the time I was at school, but now that I’m back in LA, I’ll no longer enjoy that luxury.
Baseball is a regional sport as it is, so the blackouts are killing the growth of the game. Fans just want to be able to come home and kick back after a long day at work and watch their team play…I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.
Let MLB players compete in the Olympics
Harper’s other piece of advice to the league is to let MLB players compete in the Olympics. Baseball was slated to return to the Games this summer for the first time since 2008, but since they’ve been pushed back to 2021, MLB has some time to get this right. As great as the World Baseball Classic is, I’d make the argument that the Olympics is a way bigger deal. For starters, the modern Olympics have been around 110 years longer than the WBC. Since they have been around so much longer, as a society, we view the Olympics as the epitome of athletic excellence. For example…if the world archery championships (not even sure that’s a real thing) were on TV, I wouldn’t be able to change the channel fast enough…but if Olympic archery is on, you bet your ass I’d watch every single shot. The sad truth is that the Olympics are a HUGE deal, whereas no one outside of the baseball community really gives a shit about the WBC.
I also realize that the MLB season schedule would need to be reorganized to accommodate for the two weeks during the summer that the Olympics would take place. That’s two weeks out of every four years. I’ll say that again…Two weeks out of every four years. If baseball owners can’t collectively agree that a once in a lifetime experience every four years is worth the cancellation of 14 games in the dog days of summer, then they have no business owning a club. Here’s a great idea I just came up with – push the All-Star break to coincide with the Olympics so the league won’t have to cancel as many games! That way, players that don’t make an Olympic squad get a nice little break from the season grind, owners won’t lose as much money, and there will be a whole bunch of players who can call themselves Olympians for the rest of their lives. It’s a Win-Win-Win.
If you’re watching The Last Dance, then you’d know how much the 1992 Olympic dream team meant to the sport of basketball and the impact it had on expanding the game globally. Believe it or not, baseball has fans all over the world too, but by making these types of decisions (not allowing guys to play in the Olympics) they’re limiting its reach. Hopefully, the League takes Harper’s criticisms into consideration because I’m sure many players and fans feel the exact same way.
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