[ESPN] MLB suspends spring training, delays Opening Day at least two weeks

Isn't that true of most sports, though? When my friends and I play some hoops at the park or at the Y, it's not like there's a crowd of folks watching and selling beer. Same with the soccer matches happening anymore the road. Even a lot of the church softball league games--they never attract a crowd.

What sets golf apart is the hectic individuality of it. You don't even really need a caddy.

 

There are no golf leagues that attract an audience... whereas there are plenty of rec leagues (softball/basketball) that do. I imagine your friends aren’t playing with refs involved, or with a scorekeeper, or with timeouts etc.

An amateur playing a round of golf is closer to a professional playing a round... as opposed to guys playing pickup hoops being closer to pros playing an actual game.

 

Not sure on travel, but lodging they are reserving entire hotels and the workers will stay there for that entire time also with their pay supplemented by the PGA tour players. This is per CBS

 

Spoiler

To start the 2020 season in empty ballparks, Major League Baseball would need to resolve a host of health-related and logistical questions, as well as another thorny subject:

Whether players would accept further reductions in salary.

The league has yet to make a proposal to the players’ union on the subject, but New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, in a CNN appearance Wednesday night, referenced potential salary cuts while discussing a conversation he had earlier in the day with Mets COO Jeff Wilpon.

“Apparently, Major League Baseball would have to make a deal with the players because if you have no one in the stands then the numbers are going to change, right? The economics are going to change,” Cuomo said.

Some on the players’ side, however, say the issue is already settled, pointing to the 17-page agreement the league and the union reached in March. The document created a framework for the sport during the shutdown, and includes a subhead titled, “Player Compensation and Benefits.”

“Mr. Wilpon apparently failed to inform Governor Cuomo that players and owners already reached a good-faith agreement which contemplated MLB games without fans and at neutral sites,” agent Scott Boras said. “Further, the players in this agreement agreed to be paid a fraction of their full salary based upon games played divided by 162.”

The prorated formula Boras references is for a shortened season — a player, for example, would receive half his salary if the schedule consisted of 81 games rather than the customary 162. The agreement also accounts for a canceled season, awarding players a collective advance payment of $170 million over April and May, money they keep if no games are played.

A separate section of the deal, listing the conditions for games to resume, says the commissioner’s office and the union “will discuss in good faith the economic feasibility of playing games in the absence of spectators or at appropriate substitute neutral sites.” Similar phrasing exists in other parts of the agreement as well.

One person with knowledge of the deal said the clause was not intended to signal any willingness by the players to reopen salary discussions. Others said the issue was left undecided, and that the league made it clear to the union that economic adjustments would be necessary if games were played in empty parks.

Though teams draw significant income from television and media rights, MLB might attempt to argue that unless the union makes additional concessions, the league’s losses for 2020 would increase without game day revenue from fans.

The players likely would not agree with that position.

The discussion between the sides, however, cannot fully begin until they reach an understanding of what the season would look like. Different costs exist for every scenario. If players and staff effectively are quarantined in Arizona, for example, the league would need to pay for hotels and assume other expenses. Would MLB want players to take a dollar-for-dollar cut, or apply a different formula? And if the league wants to modify or expand the postseason to create additional revenue, what would the players’ share be?

Political pressure might only complicate the conversation.

Cuomo said he asked Wilpon about playing empty parks.

“I said, why can’t we talk about a baseball season with nobody in the stands?” Cuomo said. “Look, I think it would be good for the country. I think it would be good for people to have something to watch and do to fight cabin fever. And it’s something that I’m going to pursue.”

Government officials may approve the return of baseball, in restricted conditions, before the rest of the country resumes normal activities.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, spoke Wednesday on the possibility.

“There’s a way of doing that,” Fauci said in an interview on Snapchat’s “Good Luck America” program. “Nobody comes to the stadium. Put them in big hotels, wherever you want to play. Keep them very well surveilled … but have them tested every week. Make sure they don’t wind up infecting each other or their families and just let them play the season out.”

In that case, players might be particularly disinclined to make additional salary concessions, feeling they are sacrificing by being apart from their families and that they may be safest if they remain at home. Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw are among the players who have expressed reservations about playing under quarantine, an idea the league continues to study.

Players also might argue that ownership would have more time to recoup losses from the 2020 season than players would, because owners remain in the game longer.

Player salaries would be one more potential negotiating point at the end of a long list, one the parties ideally would resolve without rancor. At a time of extraordinarily challenging circumstances for virtually all Americans, the general public likely would have little tolerance for any financial squabble between the players and owners.

 

In Korea the KBO will begin preseason games Tuesday with no fans, each team will only play 4 preseason games before opening the regular season at the beginning of May

They will announce plans Tuesday but apparently they are going to try for a full 144 game season, mixing in double headers with Monday games which is usually a day off

I did find it interesting that this will start Tuesday and restaurants and bars are not open yet. They do say an announcement will come soon on those also but I wouldn’t have expected pro baseball before restaurants and bars opened

 

Pro baseball is a much more controlled environment than bars/restaurants, and should be easier to open than bars and restaurants (bars much more so than restaurants) from a technical standpoint provided testing is accurate, reliable, attainable by MLB, and quick. Tough to gauge what Red States that haven't been hit as bad as New York will respond as regulatory standpoint and collective bargaining standpoint.

 

No matter how much "they" hate us...just keep on winning

 

Considering the competition...

 

Minute Maid park is a great stadium.

 

South Korea started their baseball up today. A couple of weeks of preseason games. Currently no fans.

 

It so great they decided to copy it and rebuild it up the road... even though its already 20 years old.

And with that, MMP still looks more aesthetically pleasing than the new Rangers stadium... especially from the way you hide most of the roof aspect when its open. Also, their home plate entrance is smack-dab in the middle of where the roof is retracted, whereas MMP's roof retracts the opposite direction which keeps home plate entrance unobscured.

 

MMP doesn’t even feel its age. Part of that is the work that’s been completed over the years but this is a stadium that seems like it could be around for the long haul.

 

If it goes well, should MLB send their teams to.... Korea?

 

lol, you sure don’t seem like you want baseball

I’m sure they will watch what happens there as well as in Taiwan where they are playing also

But as they have said many times, the timeline for baseball in the United States of America will be determined by testing capabilities, data, health experts and local governments. It’s pretty obvious whatever plan they come up with will not have games in California or NY, and likely not in Korea either

 

You know I'll take any/all sports... the question is to what lengths will the owners, and then players, go through to get to that point as well?

The owners are pushing to recoup financial losses from potential tv money revenue. The players want to ensure they keep getting paychecks. What's unclear is whether or not the networks are really suffering... yes there is no live sports, but people are eating up whatever content they're showing (whether its old games, documentaries... or as we're about to witness, record-ratings for an online NFL draft).

Advertisers are also paying decent rates given they know a lot of people are home watching television.

 

Live sports are always more valuable to advertisers because most don’t just record and fast forward through the commercials, so even if a regular TV show has better ratings, advertisers will still pay more for sports

But both sides of this are losing big money and would love to get back to playing. Testing, health officials and local governments are and will remain the key to getting baseball back

 

ESPN is trying to get rights to broadcast KBO games, biggest sticking point is they want a month to month deal where they can end it when Mlb and other US sports come back

I hope they find an agreement to show some games

 

More valuable, yes... but the networks have options and aren't as desperate as the leagues. I believe the MNF re-airs right now have gotten higher ratings than any live game on ESPN over the last 5 years. The Jordan documentary got better ratings than most NBA games on ESPN.

Its the regional networks that need baseball back more than anybody.

 

Rosenthal: An inside look at the possibilities, and risks, of an MLB restart

Spoiler

Pick an idea for the 2020 season, virtually any idea, and baseball is considering it, modeling it, trying to figure out exactly how it will work if tests for COVID-19 are sufficiently available and government and medical officials offer the requisite approval.

Those involved at the sport’s highest levels are increasingly confident games will be played in 2020. But league officials, trying to remain flexible amid the ever-shifting landscape of the pandemic, have yet to determine how, when and where that would happen.

Rather than rush into a plan and increase the risk of mistakes, the league will continue gathering information and likely wait as long as possible to present a proposal for the players association. The parties would need to negotiate any new playing conditions, and the union likely would resist any suggestion of a further reduction in salaries. The players already have agreed to prorated salaries in a shortened season, but the league might ask for additional concessions in a season that at least would begin with no fans in attendance.

The optimism for baseball’s return stems, in part, from the number of states that are considering lifting stay-at-home restrictions. Such decisions, motivated in some cases by political considerations, likely would influence baseball and its clubs, but not solely govern them; teams would need to be comfortable they were proceeding safely. The Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays, for example, acted largely on guidance from the league and medical experts when they shut down March 15, more than two weeks before the state of Florida followed suit.

Three weeks ago, the most likely path for baseball appeared to be a plan in which all 30 teams would begin the season under quarantine in Arizona, with no fans in attendance. The Arizona plan, however, is probably the least desirable of the current options, though some of its elements might be integrated into the final equation. Baseball is considering a wide range of possibilities, including teams starting in their home cities, albeit in empty parks.

Even the three-state idea reported by CBS Sports — hubs in Florida, Texas and Arizona — might be less ambitious than the one baseball ultimately selects. The league could open in 10 to 12 states, or in as many as 20 home parks, sources say. Or it could start in Florida, Texas and Arizona, then take a break after say, five weeks, to reassess the viability of moving to other locations. Even states hit hardest by the virus — New York, Michigan, California — might welcome the return of baseball in empty parks, citing it as an example of life returning to normal.

So much is fluid, so much unknown. How much travel would be feasible by the time the season opened? How would the league adjust the schedule if it moved games to different sites? And — most pressing — how can baseball even think seriously about starting the season when the shortage of tests for COVID-19 remains a nationwide concern?

Ideally, tests would be so plentiful that baseball could help facilitate testing for the general public in states where games are played, adding to the accessibility rather than subtracting from it. But a study released Monday by Harvard researchers and STAT News said that 31 states and the District of Columbia “were doing too little testing last week to identify most infected people in a timely manner.”

The longer the sport waits, the greater the number of options that might arise, provided COVID-19 numbers trend positively in states under consideration. The most realistic time range for Opening Day — somewhere between mid-June and July 4, in the view of most officials — would allow for an 80- to 100-game regular season, with the schedule running through October. An expanded postseason at neutral sites might follow, with the World Series ending in late November or early December. Such a plan would hold particular appeal for the league’s national broadcast partners if the college football season is abbreviated or canceled, creating more programming slots. The NFL plans to play this fall.

As momentum for the baseball season builds, some club officials even believe that opening parks to a limited number of fans might be possible in August or September in locations where the virus appears under control, an idea that seemed unthinkable only weeks ago and still might be impractical.

One club official acknowledged that fans in such a scenario might need to wear masks and gloves and undergo temperature checks as they entered ballparks — checks that might not be reliable. Parks could open to far less than capacity initially — say, 15,000 fans who are seated far enough apart to fulfill social distancing guidelines — and gradually increase the crowd size over time.

While such an idea still sounds far-fetched, New York Yankees president Randy Levine told the Fox Business Network last week that it is “not practical” for the league to play without fans for an entire season. League officials say teams draw about half of their local revenue from game-day expenditures, such as tickets, concessions, merchandise and parking.

But before baseball can even think about opening parks to fans, it must establish a start date, schedule and plan for the postseason and decide whether it will hold its annual All-Star Game. Even the relatively simple undertaking of resuming spring training will produce its own set of complications.

Players likely would need seven to 10 days’ notice before reporting, and spring training would figure to last about three weeks, half its usual length. The most likely scenario would be for teams to return to Florida and Arizona, particularly if those are two of the states where the season will begin. But what if some teams in states with relaxed restrictions open at home? Might it be easier for them simply to train in their home parks and save their players the inconvenience of finding housing for three weeks and then relocating?

A three-week spring training also might not be enough for starting pitchers, who in a normal camp build arm strength by throwing bullpen sessions, then live batting practice, then in exhibition games in which they work a progressively higher number of innings. Most pitchers have continued throwing during the sport’s hiatus, but not to hitters. The expansion of rosters would help ease their burden, but the risk to the starters — and potential free agents, in particular — surely would be a topic of discussion.

None of this is simple. Baseball would need to establish protocols enabling teams to continue playing if they lost one or more players to the virus, protocols that might work better in theory than in practice. Put it all together, and the challenges for the sport seem almost insurmountable. But for a $10.7 billion industry and the nation’s psyche, too much is at stake for baseball to stop trying.