I suppose they could put blow up dolls in the stands...Good thing is that the Spring league stands are pretty easy to fill...
Shouldn't fans in Philly have a chance to throw rocks at see Michael Jordan Mike Trout play?
Or people could go play golf, get some actual exercise, and help local golf courses out.
Or take up gardening.
Or just spend time as a family doing something.
And the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants?
No, I’m not for that. I’m fine with temporarily holding games in AZ so they can get the season started, but I want things put back into place next season. I’d rather see them forget this season and start it up next year, than destroy 100 years of tradition.
They already screwed baseball up enough with stupid things like the DH rule.
As long as they get rid of that awful, un-American Designated Hitter rule, they can play the games anywhere.
No thanks. I want them to keep the league alignments as they are. Here’s an easy fix for you: stop interleague play.
I heard a few days ago about the proposal to play in Phoenix, but I haven’t heard anything since. I could live with it, just to see baseball again. If they start in Phoenix that doesn’t mean they have to play the whole season there. Let’s start in Phoenix on May 1 and go back to regularly scheduled programming ASAP...could be as soon as June 1.
This idea comes from the communists.
The Cardinals train in Florida.
Your divisions don’t align with the grapefruit and cactus leagues. For example Houston is a Grapefruit team and Texas is a Cactus team.
So desperate for TV money... pathetic
Try again in 2021
Estimated losses: $1 million a game.
20000 per game at $50 a seat. Last year it was 28317 fans at $33 plus ballpark food and drinks and parking... over an 81 game season plus playoffs and the World Series.
I’m furloughed from baseball now. No baseball, no fans. No fans, no revenue. No revenue, no job.
I sure hope they’ll work it out too.
While historically teams made 1/2 of their money at the stadium, many teams could barely afford to keep the lights on.
But imagine how many would now watch under sequestration.
Win. Win.
Just do it.
Seems like it would be easy to use CGI to “fill” the stands. Just use old shots of the same stadiums filled with fans and superimpose the new games on the old crowds.
You might see the same fans in the same seats week after week, but who would notice?
You could even squeeze in new shots of the “Kiss Cam” to make it real.
Up to date numbers from the New York Times:
COVID cases in Arizona: 3,112. Per capita: 45 cases per 100,000 people. Deaths: 97
COVID cases in Florida: 17,523. Per capita: 85 cases per 100,000 people. Deaths: 389.
Which state would YOU feel safer about your team playing in?
Phoenix is compact with 10 spring training camps, two universities and Chase Field all less than an hour away by van or bus. Teams can be isolated in separate hotels, bused to and fro the respective fields so there’s extremely little exposure beyond their own team and a few opponents on the field.
With Florida, the teams would be shuttled all over Central and South Florida with bus rides that could take 4-5 hours. The only benefit would be more games starting in prime time.
But we all know what’s going to happen. If even one player or club employee gets sick, the media will howl about how this was all too soon and demand everyone be quarantined again and how it’s all Trump’s fault and we should listen to Fauci and self-quarantine for the next two years when there’s a vaccine, etc.
The Arizona plan is the safest idea and can work if a few logistics can be ironed out.
Apparently a great many Floridians have never seen a Marlins game.
This is all driven by the desire to maximize the TV audiences for these games. I believe the goal here for 2020 is to get all the teams playing in locations where they never have to play any games that are more than one time zone away from their home city. No Yankees-Angels games in NYC that start at 4:00 PM in Los Angeles, and no Yankee games in Los Angeles that start at 10:00 PM in New York.
Nobody is going to watch sports with nobody in the stands. The intensity of the crowd is what makes games so compelling. Seeing a 3 run homer in an empty stadium will be about as exciting as watching batting practice.
Lots of people. All kidding aside, I normally listen to the Redsox on the radio anyway.
Why play in a stadium?