I live in the middle, Houston. Tonight there will be a West coast game. For me it starts at 9PM. If I lived in DC, it would be 10PM. It’s really just a time zone thing. West coast night games give up a lot of the East coast audience. Now, if the Angels play the Orioles in Baltimore, we’re good.
I’ll confess I know nothing about golf. From what I’ve read, the broadcast audience value is not the bulk numbers of viewers, but the specific viewers… people who have money to spend on golf. I only know there’s a tournament going on when I tune in to see 60 Minutes and a Golf show is going over into its time slot. It’s OK. I don’t know anything about Curling, but there’s a fanbase for Curling… and Soccer — apparently.
I think ending night games would do wonders for our lives. If people took an afternoon off once-in-awhile and got away from the office and all life’s hassles, wouldn’t our lives be better?
I wonder about that… if it was a child support mod based on the lottery winnings, you might get stuck with the tax bill. Thinking of it as cash to the kids might be easier (probably not).
You’re much more likely to get gored or trampled by a cow, if you work in ag. (If you don’t work in ag — probably not.) To say nothing of crushed against a solid object by an animal taking its bad day out on you. Just Google “livestock injuries”.
The ballpark is a different experience. Watching on TV, you get the banter of the color guy and the play-by-play, so you don’t notice the slow parts of the game so much. TV gets you to focus on the game. Going to the ballpark, even if you want to focus on the game, you can’t, there are just too many distractions — getting the hot dog — the long walk to the men’s room - the attractive cheerleaders with t-shirt cannons- and the other people around you. The ballpark is an experience unto itself. I think a baseball nerd is happier with his TV experience. Here in Houston, the Juice Box has bars where you can sit on a stool with your drink and watch the game on TV, while the actual stands, with eyeballs on the actual players, is 10 yards away. (There is a bar in the Club Level, left field, with an actual view of the game. The rich people have an actual bar — I’ve seen it on a stadium tour, it’s a thing of beauty — in the section at Field level behind home plate, hidden from view. You walk thru the bar to get to your seats.)
It’s kinda weird. On the one hand we have the promise of technology and the pursuit of the perfectly called game. On the other we have James Earl Jones reciting the words of his character, Terrance Mann, in “Field of Dreams”. Can we have it both ways? — "The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. "
I live in the middle, Houston. Tonight there will be a West coast game. For me it starts at 9PM. If I lived in DC, it would be 10PM. It’s really just a time zone thing. West coast night games give up a lot of the East coast audience. Now, if the Angels play the Orioles in Baltimore, we’re good.