I’m Going To Sound So Old Here, But The World Series Games Are Ending Wayyyyy Too Late And It’s Impossible To Stay Up For Them

I know, I’m giving off HUGE “get off my lawn” vibes here but it’s a problem that a lot of baseball fans are speaking out about. The World Series games are ending way too late. How does baseball expect to grow an audience when all of their young viewers can’t stay up for the final frames? And I’m not talking about myself, the youngsters just getting into the game, the new casual fans who want to watch these endings. Games ending right around midnight on the east coast isn’t something that should be happening.

Is it the 7 minute commercials? Is it the minute and a half in between pitches? Why are these games ending so late? Game 1 started in Houston at 8:09 eastern and was over 4 hours long. Why are we starting these games past 8? Why can’t they bump them up an hour to 7? We do it for the regular season, we don’t need that full hour or pregame coverage with ARod and Papi spitting the same takes over and over. 

“BuT wHaT aBoUt ThE wEsT cOaSt!” they don’t care about sports anyways! It’s not about the west coast. I’m sure it’s all about advertising and commercial spots and they much better in prime time. That I get, but it sucks. 

I was also told the 3-batter minimum was going to shorten games, I was told doing away with the 4 pitch intentional walk was going to shorten games, guess that didn’t work. 

These games starting after 8 is brutal. I’ve got a young one who is up bright and early and I’m sure like others parents with young kids, I can’t finish these games. Shouldn’t MLB want fans to be able to see the end of the games more than the beginning? The games don’t have to start at noon or 1 PM, but a 715 first pitch wouldn’t kill anyone.

I get that some people would still be on their way home from work or still at work on the west coast, tough luck. I’m not so sure the yuppies in LA are baseballs target audience anyway. Plus if they got a 4 PM start on the west coast on weekends they’d probably love that. It would be different if it was just one game, but it’s every single game in the series. Way too late. Doesn’t the Super Bowl start pretty early too? 6:30-7? I get cuz the halftime show but still. For the love of god move these games up so we can see the endings. Walk offs after midnight aren’t great when a large chunk of audience is already knocked out. 

Just add it to the laundry list of things baseball needs to fix, now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to take a nap so I can possibly watch the World Series trophy get handed out at 12:35 tonight.