The current college baseball season sees northern teams playing for a month (some places more) on the road from mid-February to mid-March before they can start playing at home in mid-March (and even then early Spring weather can mean a lot of cancelled games).

Conference baseball championships are getting started around about now, followed by NCAA regionals and then super-regionals until finally the CWS in Omaha right toward the end of June.

The idea would be to push the CWS into what is formally the first few weeks of the following athletic year, with the last super-regional finishing before the end of June, to allow the college baseball season to start two weeks later, so northern teams that presently open at home in mid-March only have to spend the first two weeks on the road.

Does that seem like it would help Big Ten baseball, and would it be of any use to shift more of the baseball season out from under basketball and hockey season to have conference baseball action through to late May?

So now a school faces the possbility of hoping graduated seniors will stick around all summer and play into the fall? For what a $2000 stipend?

mike, I can't imagine shifting everything forward 2 weeks would make a difference. The graduated seniors stick around for the CWS now, why wouldn't they if it were 2 weeks later.

(05-20-2014 04:45 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote:  So now a school faces the possbility of hoping graduated seniors will stick around all summer and play into the fall? For what a $2000 stipend?

How can starting the college baseball season in March, finishing the regular season by the end of May, the conference tournaments & NCAA regionals in June and the CWS in the first half of July ...
... conceivably spill over into Fall?

In what world does "two weeks" = "all summer" ... let alone Fall?

And what does it have to do with stipends? Schools that make the NCAA already play afte the end of the main academic year for almost all schools in the NCAA.

Playing two weeks later would help if anything can, so the question is basically whether anything an help Big Ten baseball, or if its a lost cause.

Oh, I got it. CWS goes to about end of July. There were some proposals floated to have a split season with several weeks of fall ball a winter break and then spring ball. I was reading first few weeks of following athletic year as being following year, thinking this had the season extending into the fall with a break in late summer.

(05-22-2014 05:25 PM)mikeinsec127 Wrote:  Oh, I got it. CWS goes to about end of July. There were some proposals floated to have a split season with several weeks of fall ball a winter break and then spring ball. I was reading first few weeks of following athletic year as being following year, thinking this had the season extending into the fall with a break in late summer.

Right now the CWS is June 14 - 24. Pushing the season two weeks later would make that June 28 - July 8.

Right now the Big Ten tournament is May 21 - May 25, and that's pretty much the last live content and May 26 the FB re-runs start. Pushing it two weeks later would put it June 4 - June 8, and two more weekends of live games.

And this last season, the Buckeyes opened up on the road on 14 February and travelled for a solid month before opening in Columbus on 14 March, starting conference play 21 March, in the shadow of the Big Dance for three weeks and actually starting in the middle of the Big Ten hockey tournament. Pushing the opening two weeks later would put the first game of the season 28 February, and the first home game exactly two weeks later. The second week of conference play would land after the NCAA Final Four and Frozen Four have finished.

So its not a grand sweeping proposal, but just giving the CWS itself (not the Regional or Super Regionals) permission to spill over the June 30 end of the NCAA athletic year.

The hope is that the SECN would like the idea of having two more weeks of baseball outside of the shadow of March Madness, so that the SEC would support it alongside the Northern schools.

I'm for breaking away entirely from the NCAA in this regard. My idea is to start the season the Friday following the NCAA Basketball Championship game. The season starts in the coldest month of the year!!! How ridicuous is that? Two weeks would make a difference but not enough for the average Joe family man to bring his family out to the ballpark in early-mid March. This coach from West Virginia says all that I could say.

http://baseballnews.com/epitome-of-being...-baseball/

(05-24-2014 07:29 PM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  Two weeks would make a difference but not enough for the average Joe family man to bring his family out to the ballpark in early-mid March.

That article also notes the obstacle, which is that southern schools are massively gaming the system and will strongly oppose any complete overhaul that threatens to overturn their dominance.

I like that article and like the argument, but it is a bit of an ambit claim, and any reform that actually gets enacted is likely to be more modest than that. Fortunately we now have a system in which four of the five P5 conferences have membership that are on the "northern" side of the line, and the fifth has a newfound commercial interest in getting more of the college season out from under the shadow of the NCAA BBall tournament.

But with respect to getting average Joe family man to bring his family out to the ballpark in early-mid March ... under the polled proposal, the focus would be to market the beginning of conference play as the "real" beginning of the season, and try to get them out to the ballpark in April.

Certainly three weeks would be even better than two, then first week of conference play for most of the Big Ten (and, indeed, for most conferences) would be the weekend after the NCAA BBall championship. Especially for conference networks like the SECN and BTN, whatever they are doing during the Big Dance will be largely drowned out, so promoting "the start of conference baseball season" gets a lot easier when the BBall tournament and all its associated hype and hoopla concludes.

Four weeks would be even better, and four weeks would be just about as far as the current NCAA system could be stretched ... it would have conference tournaments ending just before the end of the athletic year, which is the last day in June, and all of the NCAA championships exempted to spill over into the pro forma start of the next athletic year.

(05-24-2014 10:11 PM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-24-2014 07:29 PM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  Two weeks would make a difference but not enough for the average Joe family man to bring his family out to the ballpark in early-mid March.

That article also notes the obstacle, which is that southern schools are massively gaming the system and will strongly oppose any complete overhaul that threatens to overturn their dominance.

I like that article and like the argument, but it is a bit of an ambit claim, and any reform that actually gets enacted is likely to be more modest than that. Fortunately we now have a system in which four of the five P5 conferences have membership that are on the "northern" side of the line, and the fifth has a newfound commercial interest in getting more of the college season out from under the shadow of the NCAA BBall tournament.

But with respect to getting average Joe family man to bring his family out to the ballpark in early-mid March ... under the polled proposal, the focus would be to market the beginning of conference play as the "real" beginning of the season, and try to get them out to the ballpark in April.

Certainly three weeks would be even better than two, then first week of conference play for most of the Big Ten (and, indeed, for most conferences) would be the weekend after the NCAA BBall championship. Especially for conference networks like the SECN and BTN, whatever they are doing during the Big Dance will be largely drowned out, so promoting "the start of conference baseball season" gets a lot easier when the BBall tournament and all its associated hype and hoopla concludes.

Four weeks would be even better, and four weeks would be just about as far as the current NCAA system could be stretched ... it would have conference tournaments ending just before the end of the athletic year, which is the last day in June, and all of the NCAA championships exempted to spill over into the pro forma start of the next athletic year.

I think that there is little chance that southern and western schools will support any more measures changing anything. I think you'll hear the standard "The Big Ten is crying because they can't win" banter. I am more practical in that I don't expect them to change so I say screw it... let's just go to summer. Attendance would be better because the weather would be nicer, and sufficient buzz can be created after the Tourney is over. Work out something with Omaha to conclude the season there (they'll be happy because they can have a tournament for spring and another for summer). Somtimes you need to make your own way and playing ball in February is beyond stupid to even casual observers.

(05-24-2014 11:43 PM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  I think that there is little chance that southern and western schools will support any more measures changing anything.

Money's money, and live programming is better filler for a college network than re-runs for reducing churn. The time of the baseball season in the athletic calendar and the position of baseball as far and away the SEC's prime spring sport means that the SECN stands to make more money by shifting the conference tournament championship game from Memorial Day weekend to one of the weekends in June.

I'm not saying that the Big Ten ought to be the lead conference in pushing it ... that ought to be the PAC-12, since if they are serious about their proposals to reduce lost class time, pushing the start of the college baseball season to the middle of March would have that effect.

And five out of 11 of the PAC-12 baseball schools are northern schools, so there are schools inside the PAC-12 to push that case.

But behind the scenes, the PAC-12 can push the case with the SEC for shifting the baseball season to make a little more money for their network.

(05-25-2014 11:56 AM)BruceMcF Wrote:  

(05-24-2014 11:43 PM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  I think that there is little chance that southern and western schools will support any more measures changing anything.

Money's money, and live programming is better filler for a college network than re-runs for reducing churn. The time of the baseball season in the athletic calendar and the position of baseball as far and away the SEC's prime spring sport means that the SECN stands to make more money by shifting the conference tournament championship game from Memorial Day weekend to one of the weekends in June.

I'm not saying that the Big Ten ought to be the lead conference in pushing it ... that ought to be the PAC-12, since if they are serious about their proposals to reduce lost class time, pushing the start of the college baseball season to the middle of March would have that effect.

And five out of 11 of the PAC-12 baseball schools are northern schools, so there are schools inside the PAC-12 to push that case.

But behind the scenes, the PAC-12 can push the case with the SEC for shifting the baseball season to make a little more money for their network.

I agree that the money or lost money in this case may be a driver in this situation, in fact I'm counting on it. But inertia can be difficult to overcome. The southern and western schools know that they'll likely be giving up some of the dominancethey've enjoyed if they give up the very real weather advantage. So is it worth it togive up a few more wins for a few more dollars. Eventually I think you're right and they will see the financial benefit as something they can't pass over. But how long will that take?

I figure at least two years for a broader understanding of the economics of a conference cable network to sink in at the main SEC baseball schools.

But there's a difference between the SEC electing to not fight the change and the SEC fighting for the change ... people pushing inside the three north-south conferences would surely help speed up the end result.

I don't know how big a difference, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to have things back. You have a hard time recruiting when you have to play that much of the beginning of the season on the road. I don't think northern teams will ever be as successful as southern (more competition from the majors and even minors to an extent).

(05-28-2014 01:14 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  I don't know how big a difference, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to have things back. You have a hard time recruiting when you have to play that much of the beginning of the season on the road. I don't think northern teams will ever be as successful as southern (more competition from the majors and even minors to an extent).

I don't agree that we can't be competitive. The first step was relaxing the oversigning rules in baseball that went without much fanfare but will make a B1G difference. You also have to look and ask the question why is there a disadvantage. If it were Just the Big Ten then you could point to the oversigning rules. But if you look back to 1984 and ask what % of teams made the CWS year by year... it's not just the BigTen it's the entire northern half of the country. They'll throw out Stony Brook or Kent Stte or Indiana or Nebraska but as statistics go those are like third standard deviation events. You can't look at a level playing field without taking into account that the first 6 weeks of the year are not exactly hospitable to players or fans. Which leads to my next point.

The goal IMO should be to go beyond "competitive" and reach profitability. You can't tell me that there isn't enough of a niche market in baseball (the flippin American Passtime) to get 4-5 thousand fans in the stands on a gorgeous summer night. I've been to minor league games and you know why... it was fun. It was a nice night, there was a playground with a little waterpark at the back, and the overall nastalgia of being at the ball park with my dad when I was a kid. I'm not a hardcore baseball fan by any stretch but I'll take my sons because it's a nice environment. If you want to make the sport profitable, you have to start by making it family friendly to get butts in the stands. From there the product is more exciting on tv then money goes up from there.
Last thought is that I can't help but think that the looming breakaway of the P5 may lead to more scholarships for baseball. Why would a poor athlete chose a partial scholarship in baseball when they could get a full ride with football or basketball?

(05-28-2014 06:20 PM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  

(05-28-2014 01:14 PM)ohio1317 Wrote:  I don't know how big a difference, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to have things back. You have a hard time recruiting when you have to play that much of the beginning of the season on the road. I don't think northern teams will ever be as successful as southern (more competition from the majors and even minors to an extent).

I don't agree that we can't be competitive. The first step was relaxing the oversigning rules in baseball that went without much fanfare but will make a B1G difference.

How big a difference? Is this the rule where Big Ten schools can oversign by one scholarship spread over two players, versus other conferences that routinely oversign by more than five scholarships?

It would seem that a tightening up of oversigning by those other conferences would have more leverage.

Quote: You also have to look and ask the question why is there a disadvantage. If it were Just the Big Ten then you could point to the oversigning rules. But if you look back to 1984 and ask what % of teams made the CWS year by year... it's not just the BigTen it's the entire northern half of the country. They'll throw out Stony Brook or Kent Stte or Indiana or Nebraska but as statistics go those are like third standard deviation events. You can't look at a level playing field without taking into account that the first 6 weeks of the year are not exactly hospitable to players or fans.

Though its not only that ... a lot of the northern schools are inside the old pre-WWII MLB footprint. It was easier for college baseball to rise in popularity in areas that had traditionally been the territory of minor league
clubs, than in areas that assume that going out to a ball game means going to a MLB park.

Quote: Which leads to my next point.

The goal IMO should be to go beyond "competitive" and reach profitability.

Even the more successful college baseball programs tend to be more break-even programs than revenue generating programs.

And in any event, they are not different goals, since getting to the level of a roughly break-even sport (like Big Ten ice hockey, where the BTN pays each hockey school $1m) requires improved competitiveness, and Big Ten baseball couldn't push through to being a revenue sport without first achieving breakeven status.

http://m.omaha.com/huskers/notes-new-pol...l?mode=jqm

I first read this last year. They relaxed the rules so that in theory they can sign an unlimited amount of prospects.

(05-29-2014 09:58 PM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  http://m.omaha.com/huskers/notes-new-pol...l?mode=jqm

I first read this last year. They relaxed the rules so that in theory they can sign an unlimited amount of prospects.

So they are going from allowing them to oversign by one FTE scholarships spread over one or two players to oversign by two FTE scholarships spread over however many players.

Which lets them have an SEC style eight oversigned ... but only if they are quarter-ride scholarships.

It seems more like a narrowing of the advantage that the SEC holds through the SEC's tolerance for oversigning across the board than an elimination of the advantage.