Using the Winter Meetings to market the game

[The Gray Eagle]

Jason Stark at the Athletic with an interesting article about using the Winter Meetings to better market baseball in the offseason.

https://theathletic.com/1444999/2019/12/09/stark-11-ideas-to-liven-up-the-winter-meetings/
Some of the more interesting ideas:

Move the Rule 5 draft to the first day of the meetings-- teams often wait till after the Rule 5 draft to make moves, due to the roster limits. No real reason not to do this.

Adding a trading deadline for the Tuesday of the meetings. The idea is that this would spur teams to make trades and add interest, like the July deadline does. The deadline would mean teams couldn't trade until some point later in the offseason, maybe late in spring training. Would be a big change for teams, but it could spur interest.

Don't allow free agents to sign until after that new trade deadline. Teams could negotiate with players after the World Series, but couldn't officially sign anyone until the second day of the meetings. Another idea to get attention, with a bunch of big signings announced at once, with more surely to follow if trading is closed for months.

Move awards week to the meetings and have a big ceremony, like the NHL already does. This would be a TV "event" that would get more attention. I don't see any downside to this. Maybe no one watches, but what would you lose?

Add a draft lottery to reduce incentives to tank. Hold the lottery during the meetings and televise it.

I'd be fine with these, if they were implemented properly. I'd guess that a lot of baseball fans would be against it, since most baseball fans are against change. But I don't see much downside-- again, as long as it's done right.

 

[jon abbey]

Personally I thought most of those were pretty stupid, especially the trading deadlines and signing deadlines, but moving up the rule 5 draft should happen.

If you want to better market baseball, fix postseason baseball TV coverage, that's about a thousand times more important than this. Get the games on networks that people can see at times when they can see them, use announcers who know the teams who are playing well, etc.

 

[The Gray Eagle]

No kidding, there are a million other things they can do too. For example, speeding up the pace of play would be the best single thing they could do to improve the game and make it more attractive, but that is a whole different thing. But I don't see the downside of most of these though. They might make the offseason more interesting. If not, who cares?

For example, I probably wouldn't watch the big gala award show-- I don't care much about those kinds of awards but a lot of other people do. That would probably be a good thing for baseball to add that.

The added trade deadline might be interesting in the way that European soccer has two transfer deadlines. The deadlines add a lot of interest, I end up refreshing websites a lot and hoping my favorite team will get some new players before it's too late. A lot of baseball fans do it at the current deadline too. Is it contrived and phony? Sure. But it might drive more interest during the offseason, when baseball doesn't get much attention. Other sports are trying to drive interest year-round, with some success. Soccer and the NFL basically have calendars that keep fans engaged most of the year. The NBA offseason has become more event-heavy too, and the first day of free agency is a big deal now.

If baseball tries and and it doesn't add any interest, again, who cares? It's just a cost-free attempt at creating more interest in the offseason.

 

[DJnVa]

Will the Rule 5 draft really bring more eyeballs? They aren't players that many folks know, so televising it or whatever really won't move the needle.

 

[jon abbey]

Will the Rule 5 draft really bring more eyeballs? They aren't players that many folks know, so televising it or whatever really won't move the needle.

No, the point there is that if they get it out of the way a bit earlier, it unfreezes rosters and could open up more trade discussion during the meetings.

 

[jon abbey]

The added trade deadline might be interesting in the way that European soccer has two transfer deadlines. The deadlines add a lot of interest, I end up refreshing websites a lot and hoping my favorite team will get some new players before it's too late. A lot of baseball fans do it at the current deadline too. Is it contrived and phony? Sure. But it might drive more interest during the offseason, when baseball doesn't get much attention. Other sports are trying to drive interest year-round, with some success. Soccer and the NFL basically have calendars that keep fans engaged most of the year. The NBA offseason has become more event-heavy too, and the first day of free agency is a big deal now.

If baseball tries and and it doesn't add any interest, again, who cares? It's just a cost-free attempt at creating more interest in the offseason.

I mean, I admittedly am a lunatic but I have been refreshing websites since the World Series ended. I think artificial deadlines would be bad for players and teams both, but also I don't really see the point of getting people excited for a few days in December when the season is still five months away. I don't think the NBA's quick moving free agent market has helped the popularity of the sport, if anything it's led to people focusing more on future player movement and less on the season actually happening now.