Perhaps its Time to Gold Cup the World Series Format
Take a few brief moments and watch and listen to the crowd, the commentator, the build-up, and the eventual reaction to what is clearly going to be the game-winning score for Mexico during the 2023 Gold Cup Final (at the 9:00 mark):
This energy created by a multi-year build-up is almost impossible to duplicate even within the frenzied world of professional soccer if this tourney were held every year, as the always-entertaining Gold Cup occurs every two years. I love the World Series as much as anyone, but it is undeniable that after the wild regular season roller coaster and the frantic playoff format, not a lot of energy and hype is reserved for the final series, especially if they involve two teams not followed nationally.
The regular season and the expanded playoff format have created a situation in which it’s a wide-open race until the very final few weeks of the baseball year. Even the Texas Rangers, who are currently the champions, had to scratch and claw to the very final week to even secure a guaranteed playoff spot. While this makes for excellent August and September baseball drama, it also means a league notoriously regionally-powerful with less casual viewing and fandom when compared to the likes of the NFL and (especially) the NBA doesn’t have enough time to actually hype potential championship matchups.
They can’t advertise superteams marching to the final round because the cruel world of baseball can kill giants within a few days---as evidenced by THREE 100-win teams losing in the Divisional Series, two of them to Wild Card winners that won an average of 87 wins. No other professional sports league within a thousand miles produces this many upsets, this many excellent teams falling apart.
Baseball has always been (and always will be) a marathon, not a sprint, which makes it consistently compelling (and produces strong TV/radio ratings during the summer) but no longer with long-running storylines for mainstream sports fandom to closely follow. In the past, when it was just 2-4 playoff spots and you usually could cut the number of possible champions to half-dozen by August, it was much easier for sporting fans to mentally begin choosing who to root for. But the Wild Card Era pretty much altered the structure of choosing your fandom.
You can’t build hype towards uncertainty, which is why today MLB promotes the star players more than the actual teams.
To be fair, it is wildly unfair for me to compare the recent World Series ratings and ho-hum lack of attention to that of a Gold Cup, but what if I told you that there exists a way to make the MLB regular season more relevant even if the owners continue insisting on its overall length?
I have discussed before how splitting the regular season in Liga MX fashion can dramatically improve the overall product each year, (in written form can be found here) but here’s another scenario in which it requires minimal changing of regular season games but with some tweaking you can build significantly more hype towards the Fall Classic in the 21st century under shifting tides of how we view and consume sports.
Don’t have the World Series every year.
Why not make it a biennial event?
Yes, biennial is a word.
So picture this format: you hold the playoffs the same way as you normally do with 12 teams entering, 6 in each league; but every couple of years you don’t actually have a World Series---the season ends with the ALCS and NLCS.
So basically, we celebrate the American League and National League champions, and automatically put them in the tourney for a World Series position the following year. Now with the World Series skipping years, you can spend the second year preparing for potential scenarios with a few teams we already know will be involved.
Under my new format, picture if the Houston Astros clinched the AL title the year before, you can spend the current regular season wondering if they can repeat as AL champs and avoid an entire playoff series, who would be a good matchup against them, and if the NL title-holder Philadelphia Phillies could have a chance if they were to meet. You still have yearly “league champions”, you’ll still have your World Series, except these titles are more precious and you get to celebrate your reign at the top for a longer time.
Three outcomes can occur under this new format, which ranges from having four teams in the tourney towards the championship, to having just two and therefore allowing us to go straight to the World Series after the AL/NL winners are revealed. Here are some examples on how I’d set-up the World Series:
Of course, the main obstacle is the baseball fandom likely not being thrilled at the idea of not having an actual champion every year, and of course I don’t see Fox under the current broadcasting contract being a fan of seeing content they’ve paid millions to exclusively broadcast get cut in half---unless they agree to extend it to the 2030s.
But to make the World Series significantly more culturally relevant while keeping the same playoff format, keeping the same number of regular season games, and still insisting on outdated broadcasting methodologies (The 8:00 start time in the Fall remains absolutely dumb) requires wild solutions.
If the owners and executives don’t want to cut the regular season in half like what happened in Liga MX, then maybe its time to add more value and rarity to the World Series itself. Under the Gold Cup idea, you hold it every two years and therefore increase the number of chances to actually become a champion while extending the timeframe in a way that allows for storylines to build and the sports mainstream and baseball casuals to pick a favorite. Even simply spending months rooting AGAINST a league champion is enough buzz to trigger stronger ratings.
Otherwise, you gotta eat those poor TV ratings if you want to remain financially greedy.