(04-16-2015 04:24 PM)ilovegymnast Wrote:  I have been to 4 home games for Kent this year out of the 10 possible. The first game I attended still had snow on the ground outside of the stadium. In each of the other 3 I have had to bundle up in order to watch and even then was still cold. Kent has played 33 games so 2/3 of the season has been away games. Only 6 of those 23 games were conference games. It isn't a matter of being able to get teams to come play up north it is a problem of not physically being able to play up north due to it being below 40 degrees until mid April. But hey if the southern and western teams want to come to Kent and try to play baseball in Feb trying to see a white baseball during a snow storm I am sure we could make something happen.

Also like to point out that despite having indoor baseball practice facilities it still doesn't equal the same kind of practices the warm weather teams get to start the season off.

It's all broken game theory.

Everyone has a vote and everyone will only vote for something that improves their current situation. Thus, nothing changes.

(04-16-2015 11:42 AM)jdgaucho Wrote:  what's in it for the rest of us? why should we agree to adjust the baseball season? Just curious since you B1G and Notre Dame folks have such an advantage in financial resources and facilities compared to us poor west coast and non p5 southeastern schools.

Like all the Southern teams playing home bowl games.

(04-16-2015 12:28 PM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  What's in it for the South and the West is to grow the pot. Baseball has potential to be not only a revenue sport but a large contributor to the bottom line to athletic departments. Right now fully half of country has a decided advantage which we all accept but it limits the popularity of the sport on the college level to pockets in the West and South. If you look at football at the college level, the value exploded with the introduction of the bowl alliance and later the BCS. Those iterations of bowl arrangements turned the game from a regional one into a national one. Now People in Ohio care about what Baylor or TCU is doing so they'll tune in. higher ratings, more money for everyone. Colleges have the advantage of representing a state and/or region and unlike the pros cant up and leave the state. in many regards (especially in the SEC) battles on the gridiron against the B1G are almost akin to battles of the civil war. It's not spoken but it's part of the reason why Bama v Ohio State or Michigan v Florida does so well.
At present, nobody cares about any other region in baseball or would stop to watch a random conference game. The only time people turn on the tube or check the scores is if their team is involved.
Baseball can and should be the third major revenue sport and outside of a handful of schools is a black hole. So what does the South and West stand to gain? A more exciting product nationwide that will lead to increased rights fees for everyone.

Excellent post. It's true if more northern schools could host games in better conditions that more fans would pay attention. Baseball now has all the regionals and super regionals broadcast online (ESPN3) or on national tv (ESPN, the U and the Deuce). I should be on board with your post because the Big West is one of the few conferences that would really benefit both from national exposure and monetarily. If baseball becomes a true revenue sport we can all really cash in and use those funds for improving facilities in other sports.

I guess I am looking at this more from the perspective of UCSB, UC Irvine or Cal State Fullerton vs the bigger picture. I am concerned that the built-in advantages B1G members already have in their favor for other sports regarding resources, facilities, conference affiliation, would start to come into play as well for baseball if the calendar was altered. The B1G has more nationally ranked teams than the BW. Weather hasn't affected that at all so far.

I remember seeing a story on the Metro Dome hosting thousands of college baseball games.Playing all hours of the night at least most were neutral site and Northern vs Northern teams .The Silver Dome could have been used for the same purpose with some modifications.

Speaking of Ohio State:

I see they played three away series to start the year: @ FAU, @ Western Kentucky and two @ UAB. They also have single nonconference games @ Miami of Ohio, Cincy and Youngstown State.

Unless I read it wrong OSU has 27 home games, 23 road games and three neutral in Boca Raton for 2015.

We need to push the season back. The weather sucks in Georgia in Jan/Feb too. It's cold and rainy which means attendance sucks. I think this would benefit the student-athletes in the classroom as well.

(04-16-2015 05:07 PM)MJG Wrote:  I remember seeing a story on the Metro Dome hosting thousands of college baseball games.Playing all hours of the night at least most were neutral site and Northern vs Northern teams .The Silver Dome could have been used for the same purpose with some modifications.

The new Vikings Dome was mandated to be capable of a baseball configuration by the Minnesota legislature. The MetroDome has been torn down, so no inside baseball for two years. Most of the Dakota DI teams played a few early games in the MetroDome, and almost all the DII and DIII Minnesota teams did too. That practice will resume when the Vikings Dome opens, only this time it will have natural sunlight during the day.

BTW, the Silver Dome is now a decrepid place with no roof. Milwaukee's Miller Park could likely be used, but Wisconsin doesn't have baseball.

(04-16-2015 12:42 PM)bitcruncher Wrote:  

(04-16-2015 12:08 PM)jdgaucho Wrote:  

(04-16-2015 11:54 AM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(04-16-2015 11:42 AM)jdgaucho Wrote:  what's in it for the rest of us? why should we agree to adjust the baseball season? Just curious since you B1G and Notre Dame folks have such an advantage in financial resources and facilities compared to us poor west coast and non p5 southeastern schools.

You have an unfair advantage. So it's not your decision to agree upon or not.

UNFAIR advantage? NDSU and Minnesota's budget for athletics is much larger than ours, UC Davis's, Pepperdine's, etc. Minnesota also has a built-in advantage simply by membership in a p5 conference. When they're willing to send basketball, basseball, volleyball and other sports on the road @ our humble abodes we will feel more sympathy.

So what's wrong if your financial advantages are mitigated somewhat by being located in the north and dealing with icy conditions during the beginning of the baseball season? No need to artificially correct this imbalance and steer baseball even further towards the p5.

Any California school has more people within walking distance than most schools in the midwest do within a couple hour's drive. Any California school has more people within walking distance than NDSU has within 3 hours flight time. So these advantages you speak of are relative - and in this case totally irrelevant.

That's not the point he was making.

The point he was making is that the P5 conferences have an automatic perception advantage in just about every sport. This influences how voters think whether were talking Volleyball, Track, Baseball, or basketball.

It's not about how many people are close to your school, it's about how many people are convinced by the media that your school is worthy and not a permanent underdog.

Totally agree with many in this thread. The reason for making the move is to grow the sport. Minor league baseball does well in terms of attendance. No reason college baseball couldn't get very similar numbers if the game was played in the summer instead of the spring.

Jackson

Even at a southern school like Alabama, it can get pretty cold in February. I'd think a surprising number of southern schools would support pushing back the start of the season if the logistical issues can be solved.

(04-17-2015 08:54 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  Even at a southern school like Alabama, it can get pretty cold in February. I'd think a surprising number of southern schools would support pushing back the start of the season if the logistical issues can be solved.

If you push the season back a month then wouldn't it span across three semesters? Because unless I'm mistaken college baseball ends in June and the summer semester at most schools ends in July.

(04-17-2015 09:25 PM)TrojanCampaign Wrote:  If you push the season back a month then wouldn't it span across three semesters? Because unless I'm mistaken college baseball ends in June and the summer semester at most schools ends in July.

But the Fall semester doesn't start until Sept. And most students don't enroll during the Summer semester.

Even beginning in March, it would only cross two semesters, Spring and Summer - as long as you finish by August 1, you steer clear of the Fall Semester.

The Summer semester at Alabama actually starts in early May with Interim, so Spring sports have already encroached the Summer semester. The two traditional summer mini-terms run from late May to early August. I took Alabama's 2015 schedule and shifted everything 13 months into the future, so their 2016 season would look like this:

Mid-March to Mid-June 2016: Regular Season
June 21-26, 2016: Conference Tournament
July 1-4, 2016: NCAA Tournament, Regional
July 8-11, 2016: NCAA Tournament, Super Regional
July 16-27, 2016: College World Series

This actually supposes no changes to the tournament format itself - I would actually like to see it setup more like the NCAA Basketball tournament, and just have it simply be six rounds of best-of-3 over three weekends. There would be 16 first-round sites, which would host two concurrent series on Thursday and Friday, and then the winners of those series would play each other on Saturday and Sunday. TV might dictate a Saturday-Tuesday setup so that there are more games on the weekends, but it could still be done in three weekends. For the first three rounds of the tournament, ESPN could devote four networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNNews), and with enough hosts in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, actually run a total of 16 games each day.

For the conference networks, there is now live programming well into June. This benefits the SEC, Pac 12, and Big Ten. The inventory freed up in February and early March can be used for more coverage of basketball, hockey, and gymnastics. The Fox RSNs and ESPNU also now have more appropriate programming for June and July as well.

(04-18-2015 09:22 AM)chargeradio Wrote:  Even beginning in March, it would only cross two semesters, Spring and Summer - as long as you finish by August 1, you steer clear of the Fall Semester.

The Summer semester at Alabama actually starts in early May with Interim, so Spring sports have already encroached the Summer semester. The two traditional summer mini-terms run from late May to early August. I took Alabama's 2015 schedule and shifted everything 13 months into the future, so their 2016 season would look like this:

Mid-March to Mid-June 2016: Regular Season
June 21-26, 2016: Conference Tournament
July 1-4, 2016: NCAA Tournament, Regional
July 8-11, 2016: NCAA Tournament, Super Regional
July 16-27, 2016: College World Series

This actually supposes no changes to the tournament format itself - I would actually like to see it setup more like the NCAA Basketball tournament, and just have it simply be six rounds of best-of-3 over three weekends. There would be 16 first-round sites, which would host two concurrent series on Thursday and Friday, and then the winners of those series would play each other on Saturday and Sunday. TV might dictate a Saturday-Tuesday setup so that there are more games on the weekends, but it could still be done in three weekends. For the first three rounds of the tournament, ESPN could devote four networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNNews), and with enough hosts in the Mountain and Pacific time zones, actually run a total of 16 games each day.

For the conference networks, there is now live programming well into June. This benefits the SEC, Pac 12, and Big Ten. The inventory freed up in February and early March can be used for more coverage of basketball, hockey, and gymnastics. The Fox RSNs and ESPNU also now have more appropriate programming for June and July as well.

So long as there was a dead period in May for finals, it seems perfect to me.


Southern and Western schools won't vote for it because they want their unfair advantage in early home games.

(04-17-2015 08:54 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  Even at a southern school like Alabama, it can get pretty cold in February. I'd think a surprising number of southern schools would support pushing back the start of the season if the logistical issues can be solved.

Bama can afford to fly west of Texas once in a while. Set up a H&H series with Long Beach State or USF. They'd gladly make the trip out to Tuscaloosa if the Bammers come to their humble abode (Yes I know, this has nothing to do with the debate).


Back on topic, Indiana was in the CWS recently and Minnesota has three national championships and five appearances in Omaha to their credit. The weather has not changed up there in the last 40 years. It sounds like the B1G just wants to cover up the fact that they really don't care about baseball as a whole, and are using the climate as an excuse.

Stony Brook reached the CWS in 2012. Since then:

2013: 25-34 overall, 15-15 in America East. 24 home games, 29 road, 6 neutral
2014: 35-18 overall, 18-5 AEC (regular season champs). 22 home, 23 road, 8 neutral. RPI at tourney selection was 113.
2015: currently 17-11 overall, 9-2 AEC. 16 home games, 12 road.

So much for their struggle to get home games.

(04-18-2015 01:47 PM)jdgaucho Wrote:  

(04-17-2015 08:54 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  Even at a southern school like Alabama, it can get pretty cold in February. I'd think a surprising number of southern schools would support pushing back the start of the season if the logistical issues can be solved.

Bama can afford to fly west of Texas once in a while. Set up a H&H series with Long Beach State or USF. They'd gladly make the trip out to Tuscaloosa if the Bammers come to their humble abode (Yes I know, this has nothing to do with the debate).


Back on topic, Indiana was in the CWS recently and Minnesota has three national championships and five appearances in Omaha to their credit. The weather has not changed up there in the last 40 years. It sounds like the B1G just wants to cover up the fact that they really don't care about baseball as a whole, and are using the climate as an excuse.

They changed the format and qualifications for Omaha in 1984. Rule changes effectively killed Northern baseball getting into the CWS because weather became a far more important factor as the home team is more likely to win and they didnt have an RPI thing that included home/away.

(04-18-2015 02:09 PM)jdgaucho Wrote:  Stony Brook reached the CWS in 2012. Since then:

2013: 25-34 overall, 15-15 in America East. 24 home games, 29 road, 6 neutral
2014: 35-18 overall, 18-5 AEC (regular season champs). 22 home, 23 road, 8 neutral. RPI at tourney selection was 113.
2015: currently 17-11 overall, 9-2 AEC. 16 home games, 12 road.

So much for their struggle to get home games.

Kent St also went to the CWS the same year.

Pitching is the name of the game, and top Northern pitching goes south and west, as cold weather pitching is more likely to lead to injury and less play time and practice.

(04-18-2015 02:28 PM)Big Ron Buckeye Wrote:  

(04-18-2015 01:47 PM)jdgaucho Wrote:  

(04-17-2015 08:54 PM)chargeradio Wrote:  Even at a southern school like Alabama, it can get pretty cold in February. I'd think a surprising number of southern schools would support pushing back the start of the season if the logistical issues can be solved.

Bama can afford to fly west of Texas once in a while. Set up a H&H series with Long Beach State or USF. They'd gladly make the trip out to Tuscaloosa if the Bammers come to their humble abode (Yes I know, this has nothing to do with the debate).


Back on topic, Indiana was in the CWS recently and Minnesota has three national championships and five appearances in Omaha to their credit. The weather has not changed up there in the last 40 years. It sounds like the B1G just wants to cover up the fact that they really don't care about baseball as a whole, and are using the climate as an excuse.

They changed the format and qualifications for Omaha in 1984. Rule changes effectively killed Northern baseball getting into the CWS because weather became a far more important factor as the home team is more likely to win and they didnt have an RPI thing that included home/away.

The schedule hasn't changed though, has it?

The formatting changes didn't stop Creighton or Wichita State from making it to Omaha in the 90s. It is worth pointing out though, that in 1999 the NCAA formally introduced the Super Regional to the baseball tournament.