Red Bulls games take less than two hours to complete
You'll never get me to admit to not enjoying baseball, as that is a fireable offense for a sportswriter in this town.
But how can the sport justify this: The Mets game Sunday slogged on for three hours and 42 minutes, which made it a sprint compared to the Yankees game Sunday, which lasted three hours and 55 minutes.
The Giants managed to beat the Phillies, 6-1, in 1919 in only 51 minutes. Granted, there were no TV commercials between innings, but still . . .
It's beyond time for Bud Selig and his friends to get serious about speeding up the game.
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Comments (9)
Neil, I agree with you. One of my favorite sports is MotoGP motorcycle racing and that lasts an hour. Bud Selig will give some lip service but look at the revenues. They are a record highs. Which has bigger audiences: 3 1/2 hour NASCAR races or 2 hour IRL races (God help them if Danica Patrick goes to NASCAR as her father threatened two years ago).?? 3 hour NFL games do far better than 2 hour MSL games. Maybe there is the thought that a casual fan is more likely to channel surf into and watch part of a game. If its longer, you'll get more eyeballs.
There is a bloat in telecasts of just about all major sports. Even network broadcasts of college basketball are going over the 2 1/2 hour mark. And don't get me started on NCAA football ... 3 hours plus for most games last year, even those in smaller conferences on regional tv or cable.
At least hockey [even playoff hockey] is a manageable 2 1/2 hours, but a lot of that time is taken up in the intermissions.
MLB is just the worst as a true network time killer.
But to me it's kinda like golf. Where I caddied back in the late 70s and early 80's, it was a point of pride to get a foursome around the links in three hours or less. Play quick and snappy and leave the b-s for hole 19. Now I've been told that a round takes 4 hours plus.
If you watch games that are telecast and compare them to games that aren't telecast (specifically college football and basketball), the non telecast games typically end 30-45 minutes sooner than a game that is telecast. Why? TV needs to make back the money it spent on the games in the first place. And in the case of ESPN in particular that overpays for contracts and doesn't get the kind of ratings needed to sell ads at inflated prices, that means more commercial time is going to be alloted either before the game, during halftime or during designated breaks at 4 minute intervals to make up that difference.
Eventually if soccer ever gets popular here, you will see the games last from 2hrs and 10 min to 2 hrs and 30mins., even without the commercial time wasted during the games.
It's out of hand. Red Sox and Tigers played three games all over three and a half hours last week. Saturday's Yankees-Red Sox game couldn't be helped by the rain delay, but Sunday night, both Dice-K and Hughes were holding the ball for long periods of time before throwing to the plate. And batters stepping out in-between every pitch to adjust everything from the helmet to their batting gloves to digging in.
It's really maddening. Mike Hargrove, the original Human Rain Delay would be considered the norm today.
Not playing "God Bless America" during the 7th inning stretch would help move the game along a little.
Ken Davidoff, are you reading this stuff? It's time to take action. Call Bud! Seriously.
cm,
Also Steve Trachsel pitching would help.
Saturday's Yankee-Red Sox game was 2hrs 49 minutes if you remove the rain delay.
Sat Braves-National- 2:44 10-2 final
Sat Mets- Brewers 2:38.
So there are some games that run long..... and some games that end quickly. That's what you get in a sport where there is no clock to determine the length of a game.
Saturday's Yankee-Red Sox game was 2hrs 49 minutes if you remove the rain delay.
Sat Braves-National- 2:44 10-2 final
Sat Mets- Brewers 2:38.
So there are some games that run long..... and some games that end quickly. That's what you get in a sport where there is no clock to determine the length of a game.