Ever wondered why college
baseball hasn't exploded as a major revenue sport?
Look no further than the
weather for Friday's scheduled game between East Carolina and Michigan.
Rain, wind, and mid-40s temperatures aren't quite the backdrop most fans
associate with America's favorite pastime, but those elements are pretty
common for nearly half of the college baseball season.
And that's in the
southeast.
Up north, programs are
forced to migrate south for February and part of March before heavily
loading the backend of their schedule when the weather is more
forgiving. So you have to sympathize with the treatment Michigan
received from Mother Nature this weekend in Greenville.
If you don't call Arizona,
California, Florida, Louisiana or Texas home, chances are your school's
fans must sport sweatshirts, fleece, and mittens to early-season games.
That's those brave enough to bundle up for three-plus hours to fight the
hand-stinging sound of that aluminum ping.
(Those who've taken
batting practice in 40-degree temperatures know what I mean.)
But the weather is just
one issue that keeps fans away from the ballpark for at least half of
baseball's 56-game gauntlet. For those who aren't chased away by the
meteorological conditions, the temptation to lock in on the last month
of the college basketball gauntlet can be too enticing to resist.
Because aside from the
Super Bowl, no sporting event receives the widespread attention of March
Madness. The NCAA Tournament's weekly drama, along with the charm of
Cinderella schools, has created a bonanza around which weddings and
vacations are planned.
That the NCAA forces
baseball to compete with the stretch run of the hoops season is
completely shortsighted. It's bad enough that it lets Mother Nature hold
fans hostage, but it is shooting itself in the foot by overlapping the
two sports.
Not that baseball will
ever gain the popularity that basketball enjoys — it won't — but the
NCAA should at least take measures to maximize its potential.
At this stage, only the
College World Series registers on the national radar. And much of the
credit for its success rests squarely on ESPN, which aired the CWS long
before it ever became cool.
The rest of the college
baseball season could become cool if the NCAA would wake up and delay
the season's start until early May and run it through early August. The
warm weather almost assuredly would generate larger crowds, and the
timing would eliminate many of the distractions and free up available
television spots.
Major League Baseball
would prove the only competition in that scenario. And though the
college game will never compete with the Majors, it certainly can gain
some market share from fans who are fed up with the ongoing steroids
saga.
A new superstar is
identified almost weekly as a past or present juicer in the sport in
which purists refuse to turn a blind eye. Those purists extend from the
cheap seats to the press box, and they now view many of the game's most
glamorous records as tainted.
If they can get past the
impure sound of the aluminum stick, they can be won over by amateurs not
yet corrupted by the pressures to accelerate their physical development
artificially. But that just won't occur if the NCAA insists on making
baseball partially a winter sport.
Beyond the monetary
rationale, the student-athletes would benefit greatly from moving
baseball to the summer. That would enable them to focus heavily on
academics during the spring semester instead of enduring the unforgiving
travel that keeps them out of class more than any other sport.
Of course that would make
too much sense. And it's not often that the NCAA is accused of that.
