I refuse to be a fan of college baseball until they start using wood bats only....aluminum bats just doesn't do it for me. PING! ugh

(05-04-2014 10:03 AM)Bearcats#1 Wrote:  I refuse to be a fan of college baseball until they start using wood bats only....aluminum bats just doesn't do it for me. PING! ugh

With the B-Cor bats, they don't ping anymore. They are as close to wood bats as they can be. The main reason colleges won't go to wood bats, is the expense. Get MLB to pay for them, and I believe the colleges would use them.

Here in SC college baseball is bigger than almost anything else in the spring. Here it even is bigger than minor league baseball in some places. South Carolina baseball dominates the Columbia market, the second biggest in SC, and Clemson is a big presence in Greenville/Spartanburg.

You could move the season back a week or 10 days, even two weeks. Starting the end of February and ending just after July 4 wouldn't bother many. It would take the CWS and the NCAA regionals, move them farther up into June and July so they stand up more.

(05-04-2014 10:38 AM)Big Frog II Wrote:  

(05-04-2014 10:03 AM)Bearcats#1 Wrote:  I refuse to be a fan of college baseball until they start using wood bats only....aluminum bats just doesn't do it for me. PING! ugh

With the B-Cor bats, they don't ping anymore. They are as close to wood bats as they can be. The main reason colleges won't go to wood bats, is the expense. Get MLB to pay for them, and I believe the colleges would use them.

Players going from HS directly to pro baseball have to adjust to using wood bats, because they use aluminum or composite bats in HS. MLB is fine with those players adjusting after they turn pro, just as they are with college players doing the same. And the amount of money in the sport that is generated by selling aluminum and composite bats from t-ball through college means that there would be massive pushback if MLB tried to push wood bats farther down the food chain.

(05-04-2014 10:38 AM)sctvman Wrote:  You could move the season back a week or 10 days, even two weeks. Starting the end of February and ending just after July 4 wouldn't bother many. It would take the CWS and the NCAA regionals, move them farther up into June and July so they stand up more.

Two weeks only requires moving the CWS proper into July. That would allow the Super Regionals to finish by the end of June, and even if a host school is moving conferences, they are still officially in the conference when they host the Regional or Super-Regional.

A far more simple solution would be for the conferences who desire a network to buy the rights to one of the numerous wooden bat leagues that feature college players. It would more than likely be cheaper than keeping the entire team on campus all summer long.

I just don't see this working in the Northeast. I don't think it will get fans in the seats and the Northeast in general is a professional sports market. I can't imagine a situation where one will say, "Hey, let's say we watch (name your Alma Mater) instead of the Phils/Yankees/Mets/Red Sox/O's/Nationals"!

(05-06-2014 07:21 PM)RutgersMike Wrote:  I just don't see this working in the Northeast.

"working" defined how ... improve things or cross over some imaginary invisible threshold?

On the first, two weeks later would improve things.

Quote: I don't think it will get fans in the seats and the Northeast in general is a professional sports market.

Obviously the larger conference network benefit from extending baseball season two further weeks after the end of Bball season is the SECN. There's some incremental benefit to the BTN, but the margin is substantially smaller ... which is, after all, part of why the Big Ten used the addition of Rutgers and Maryland to launch LAX as a conference sport.

For the other northern conferences such as the Big East and the MAC, filler programming for a conference network is not such an issue, and the primary benefit is the improved opportunities for success in the sport.

(05-06-2014 07:21 PM)RutgersMike Wrote:  I just don't see this working in the Northeast. I don't think it will get fans in the seats and the Northeast in general is a professional sports market. I can't imagine a situation where one will say, "Hey, let's say we watch (name your Alma Mater) instead of the Phils/Yankees/Mets/Red Sox/O's/Nationals"!

That only makes it a problem for a handful of schools out of the B1G, PAC and SEC, who would be the conferences pushing the move.

Phils--Penn STate, maybe Rutgers.
Yankees, MEts--Rutgers.
Red Sox--Nothing.
O's, Nationals--Maryland.

Can Buckeye baseball compete at all with the Indians and Reds? Can Wolverine and Spartan baseball compete with the Tigers? Can Big Ten baseball compete with the Cubs and White Sox? Those are the more important questions.

Can SEC baseball compete with Braves baseball?

(05-06-2014 08:30 PM)johnbragg Wrote:  Can Buckeye baseball compete at all with the Indians and Reds?

No. They'd more be competing for the live gate with the Indians AAA affiliate the Columbus Clippers.

Which is another advantage of not making too drastic a shift ... Big Ten baseball would be well over before a playoff race involving either the Reds or the Indians really heated up.

(05-06-2014 07:21 PM)RutgersMike Wrote:  I just don't see this working in the Northeast. I don't think it will get fans in the seats and the Northeast in general is a professional sports market. I can't imagine a situation where one will say, "Hey, let's say we watch (name your Alma Mater) instead of the Phils/Yankees/Mets/Red Sox/O's/Nationals"!

I agree with you that the competition for marketshare and interest is dominated by pro leagues, but you've got nothing to lose. The imagination of everyone will not be captured by mediocrity. But there was tangible buzz when Stony Brook made a run a couple years ago to the CWS.

(05-13-2014 01:28 AM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  

(05-06-2014 07:21 PM)RutgersMike Wrote:  I just don't see this working in the Northeast. I don't think it will get fans in the seats and the Northeast in general is a professional sports market. I can't imagine a situation where one will say, "Hey, let's say we watch (name your Alma Mater) instead of the Phils/Yankees/Mets/Red Sox/O's/Nationals"!

I agree with you that the competition for marketshare and interest is dominated by pro leagues, but you've got nothing to lose. The imagination of everyone will not be captured by mediocrity. But there was tangible buzz when Stony Brook made a run a couple years ago to the CWS.

Well, we're basically talking about it as a TV product. Content for the conference networks would be driving the move. So the pro vs college question matters--would there be enough viewership for Buckeye baseball or Nittany Lions baseball on the BTN, or Gator or Vols or Crimson Tide or XXX Tigers baseball on the SEC Network to make the switch viable?

The argument that baseball fans are fans of their franchise first and foremost is a strong one. People don't watch baseball so much as they watch the Red Sox, Yankees, Reds, etc. Unlike college and pro football, they'd be in direct competition on TV. It's not like building the UConn football fanbase where you just had to find the guys with UConn shirts and Giants/Patriots/Jets caps or vice versa and convince them to add a Saturday UConn football game to their sports diet.

(05-13-2014 05:58 AM)johnbragg Wrote:  Well, we're basically talking about it as a TV product. Content for the conference networks would be driving the move. So the pro vs college question matters--would there be enough viewership for Buckeye baseball or Nittany Lions baseball on the BTN, or Gator or Vols or Crimson Tide or XXX Tigers baseball on the SEC Network to make the switch viable?

For Gater, Vols, Crimson Tide or OneOfThree Tigers, definitely ... which is why many SEC baseball programs get reasonable live gates when they have a good year.

Watching the Wolverines baseball team getting beat by EMU, or the Nittany Lions beat by Kent State ... maybe not so much. I don't think that BTN drives the value proposition as much as the SECN.

Summer baseball isn't possible. The better college players spend the summer in The Cape Code league and other leagues like it honing their skills.
CJ

(05-14-2014 03:08 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  Summer baseball isn't possible. The better college players spend the summer in The Cape Cod league and other leagues like it honing their skills.

I assume you are talking about the idea of playing all through the summer ... some summer college baseball is obviously possible since the college season already extends partway into the summer.

If the baseball season were shifted two weeks later, the Cape Cod league could easily shift from mid-June to mid-August to early July to the end of August.