“In the past 15 years, according to a recent study by the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport, the percentage of African-American major league baseball players has plunged to 8.4 percent from 18 percent; the percentage of white players has slipped to 59.5 percent from 68 percent.

Now look at Division I football statistics compiled by the N.C.A.A. In the past five years, the percentage of football scholarships offered to African-American players has risen to 45.4 percent in 2005-6 from 39.5 percent in 1999-2000.”

I read Roberts’ remarkable findings and claims and thought back to Labor Day weekend, when Appalachian State stunned much of planet Earth with its compelling slaying of top-5-ranked, powerhouse Michigan. It wasn’t with smoke and mirrors that A State pulled off the feat, it was with quality athletes — all over the field, and especially at the skill positions. Does that kind of upset happen 20 years ago? Of course not; had it, the reaction to this game wouldn’t have been as powerful as it was. And now, virtually every Saturday sends fresh jolts throughout the top 25 rankings. College athletic directors who 5 or 10 years thought they’d scheduled “gimmes” out of conference in 2007 are learning something else.

The vast majority of college football games each Saturday are completed just as baseball’s playoff clubs are leaving their hotels. And so baseball’s wound in the competitive sports marketplace is self-inflicted. Why can’t a postseason first pitch be delivered at 1:05 on a Saturday? Because of baseball’s bloodlust for prime — and past prime — time big bucks.

There’s a cautionary tale here for hockey. The good news is that when a hockey broadcast, regular season or playoff, commences at 7:00 on the East Coast the action starts at 7:05 and pretty much proceeds unabated until 9:30. It’s a kiddie-family friendly schedule. For some mysterious reason baseball broadcasts arrive and viewers are greeted by nearly a half hour of non-action analysis. Then, in its modern iteration, baseball imposes something on the order of 21 pitching changes over the course of nine innings. Really, could it do anything more to drive away viewers — young ones most particularly?

The economics of baseball for families aren’t all that bad — wide swaths of stadiums’ upper decks and bleacher seats remain within wallets’ reach. Less so, though, I think with big-league hockey. The American League and CHL games I attend are constantly crammed with kiddies. That’s not because they find the NHL boring.

There are great athletes today in hockey, at all levels. This is true to some extent because they have been able to make a connection with the game on television. But could even more great athletes form an attachment with hockey, particularly, say, in urban settings? I think so.

One of the more endearing traditions in the American Hockey League is the relative prevalence of afternoon games. Some are scheduled during September’s preseason slate, others on holidays like Columbus Day. School kids by the busload fill the stands at affordable rates. Hockey wants to be a hit, but first you must hook the kids.

“As viewing habits go,” Roberts concludes, “a sport can’t be a hit if it’s not seen. Football gets that. And with it, all the talent.”   

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Posted at 9:31 am. Filed under American Hockey League, Baseball, MLB, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, National Hockey League, Other Sports, Print, Pro Hockey Ticket Pricing.
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7 Comments

  1. Mark Tucker wrote:

    Gary Bettman will read that and immediately begin scheduling games for next year that start at 2 AM.

    Because it makes no sense, and it’s not broken.

    Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 9:47 am | Permalink
  2. Mark D wrote:

    Baseball is seeing the massive decline in domestic participation mostly because most Latin American players aren’t subject to the entry level draft. Thus a talented athlete in Venezuela can be signed at age 16, whereas a USA/Canada/Puerto Rico-born player can’t be drafted until finishing high school. Thus there’s a substantial economic incentive for teams to neglect domestic scouting.

    So while I’m all in favor of early start times for hockey and baseball, hockey really doesn’t have to worry about this problem at all.

    Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 11:17 am | Permalink
  3. vt caps fan wrote:

    Remember a few years back, when just about all major sports moved the start times of games from 730, to 7 and there was huge uproar, in hindsight its exactly what keeps kids glued to the TVs. I can’t tell you how many times my folks would get on my case to get to bed, just to watch the last few moments of a game. Moving the start time to 7 was a bright move. Too bad MLB hasn’t realized that although you may ‘own’ primetime. Most people who slightly care about baseball would rather watch the last 3 innings then the first 6. So if they moved the start time to 730, with a half hour of pregame, then start at 8 you could get a lot more viewers between 930-10, instead of 1030-11.

    While hockey isn’t as bad as baseball in this right… the NHL did mess up (in my opinion) by challenging College football on its day (historically, January 1st) and with the pens and sabres outdoor game. Lets be honest, the casual hockey fan probably will not remember to watch this game because Big State U is playing Cinderella 1 in the .com bowl game, because it will be advertised like hell in the next month. NHL should not challenge football, it should have waited in that bye week between the NFL championship and the Super bowl (the last weekend in January). Where all you have on TV is basketball. This game was designed for the American audience, it should have waited until Football was out of the picture (because thats America’s passion). Just my opinion… yes I’m biased, but we (VT) probably wont be bowling on January 1st so I’ll still watch the outdoor game and root for both teams to catch pneumonia.

    Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 11:25 am | Permalink
  4. pepper wrote:

    Was this post intended to bash baseball or glorify the college football game? It certainly had little to do with hockey. (Granted its a slow Caps week with their AHL-like schedule thus far.)

    If you could get the message to sink in to young athletes that baseball is guaranteed money, and football decidedly is not (not to mention the risk of suffering a collection of injuries that will erode the quality of the rest of your life with playing the latter), more young athletes would want to play baseball.

    And call me an insomniac and/or a barfly. Baseball is a slowly unfolding drama. Does every form of entertainment need to be breakneck-paced action? Why don’t we shorten all games-with-clocks to an hour (running time) and run constant banner ads on the screen, lest younger generations turn away too soon?

    I’m watching all of these baseball games (in-between glimpses of Wild / Kings, for example) that don’t end until 1 am. Woo hoo!

    Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 11:30 am | Permalink
  5. ThunderWeenie wrote:

    A few random thoughts

    1) This is an aside, but I hope you’ll pardon me: “Parityâ€? in college football? Are you freakin’ kidding me? A league that actually decides its rankings based (in large part) on a POLL?!!!

    Don’t get me wrong, college football is a lot of fun to watch as a spectator sport, but one of the reasons I don’t actively follow it is because it has a ludicrous system for deciding who gets a shot at a championship and who doesn’t. In baseball and hockey, the long seasons (excessively long though they may be) give you plenty of chances to prove that you deserve to be in those playoffs. Your future doesn’t depend on someone’s opinion of you!!!!!!!!

    2) To bring this back to hockey….lets be careful about assuming that schedules and game times have all that much to do with how many people watch. Monday Night Football has no trouble holding an audience in spite of the fact that it often finishes somewhere around midnight ET (on a weeknight!). On the other hand, people who really aren’t interested aren’t going to care more just because the game is on at 1:00 in the afternoon.

    NBC has made it very clear to the NHL that they will pretty much only televise games in the afternoon, because they don’t want to give up their precious Saturday evening slots. So, um…anyone else happen to notice when NBC cut away from Game 5 of the Ottawa-Buffalo series in 2007 to show the Preakness pre-race coverage? Gee whiz, I guess the afternoon schedule made a big difference there, didn’t it?

    Baseball is in decline for a lot of reasons, and hockey has had trouble breaking through in the United States for a lot of reasons (that’s a different rant for another day), but I would put scheduling as a minor factor, at best. If people don’t care, they just don’t care.

    Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 7:31 am | Permalink
  6. pucksandbooks wrote:

    TW - No doubt you know this, but I think it a helpful reminder: college football, up until the formation of the BCS, awarded merely a “mythical” national championship. Precisely because of the BCS, many think it’s still mythical, LOL. Call me a crank, an unsophisticate, a fuddy duddy, but I found that old system rather endearing. It is after all “just” intercollegiate athletics. College hoops of course is neatly tidied up with its tourney, but say this for playoff-less pigskin: the resulting debate and controversy sure keeps a big number of people engaged.

    Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 11:22 am | Permalink
  7. Thunderweenie wrote:

    Pucksandbooks: Yah, I was referring more to the modern BCS and its obtuse, arbitrary, and absurd selection system. The fact that a poll has ANY role whatsoever in shaping a championship game matchup undermines the credibility of the whole exercise, IMHO.

    BTW, I meant to thank you for posting this. While one could argue that it is off-topic because it isn’t strictly hockey-related, I prefer to think that hockey doesn’t live in a bubble. Controversies and debates that go on in other sports (and elsewhere, out there in the “real” world) do influence what goes on with our beloved game on frozen water.

    So thanks–this blog, in a word, rocks.

    Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 11:53 am | Permalink

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