(05-21-2020 10:14 AM)bullet Wrote:  Makes no sense for student-athletes to push it further into the summer. This is just another attempt by the Big 10 to justify their failure to achieve success.

I can understand the argument that it doesn't make sense for the student-athletes. If schools want to argue that their semesters are long completed prior to July and that's why they can't start the baseball season later, then that's fair.

However, the lack of success of baseball in the Big Ten is largely artificial due to the schedule. Of course the Big Ten teams are going to be weaker when they play at least the first 4 weeks of the season on the road and it's *entirely* due to the weather! It's not about the money or commitment from the Big Ten (see the facilities at places like Michigan and Ohio State) or the popularity of baseball in the North (as MLB's most popular franchises consistently include the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs and Cardinals), but simply the weather during the college baseball calendar.

Now, I can understand why Southern teams may not want to give up that artificial advantage, but we shouldn't pretend that the fact that half of the country is inhospitable for baseball for the first month of the season doesn't have a huge impact on which schools perform well in college baseball and its popularity.