Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred took over in 2015 and has publicly stated that he wants to make the game faster paced and more attractive to the young fan. The path to this objective seemed clear and many felt Manfred was pulling all the right strings to implement necessary change. Due to this, he has been well-received by the new generation of players and well-liked by fans. This was up until the Coronavirus pandemic reared its ugly head. The commissioner has been lackluster throughout 2020 in capitalizing on a monumental opportunity to capture the young fan as stated above. In fact, he no longer seems ready to lead baseball into a new age. It is apparent that Manfred is part of the same old guard.
For starters, the commissioner has shown during 2020, total commitment to the owners at the expense of the players and the game itself. I understand it is his job to protect the interests of all 32 owners but he also needs to protect the game as a whole. The latter should always come first and during this pandemic that was far from the case. During negotiations of a potential shortened season, one thing was abundantly clear, money was most important. MLB owners were worried about their bottom line much like many of us were worried about our next paycheck. This clouded judgement is the primary reason baseball did not take advantage of the 6 to 8 week window of zero competitive sport consumption by millions of sports fans. Not to mention, these same 6-8 weeks were baseball’s yearly time slot for a regular season to start anyway. This period was crucial in capturing young fans and fans who may have given up on the sport at a previous time.
Manfred and his army of Owners had much different plans in mind. They started with two offers to the players that were simply not feasible. After finally coming to an agreement on 60 games, significant time had passed. Why the delay? Peek the title. As far as professional baseball goes, we are in Manfred’s world. It turns out that a shorter regular season, and longer playoffs, would make the sport most profitable under difficult circumstances. The commissioner was holding out to ensure the already less significant regular season would be even less significant while expanding meaningful and viewable playoff games. There will be 16 teams in the dance for this shortened season. This is an odd strategy but does make sense as playoff baseball is the league’s cash cow year in and year out.
After both players and owners agreed on a shortened season, it was time to get to work on executing a safe environment for all personnel involved in playing a baseball game. The plan to move forth with a season not deploying a bubble atmosphere seemed destined for disaster. Sure enough, there have been multiple virus outbreaks and postponements league-wide. The season was and may still be in jeopardy. In response to this, Manfred pushed off the blame back to the players, stating they needed to be more stringent in following health guidelines and protocol. The lack of a bubble can be attributed to the league unwilling to incur another expense in what has been a challenging and costly year. This decision may end up being more costly in the long-run to the game. The commissioner is on his own time and has failed the young fan.