How the NBA Bubble and an MLB mini-season Supports a 1981 Regular Season Idea
So a funny thing happened in the Year of the Covid:
More evidence that baseball benefits from a shortened season, from cutting the fat.
And more specifically, a split season.
Let’s first take a look at the split season concept, which happened once during the 1981 season in Major League Baseball. Thanks to a strike, the season was cut by a bit and they decided to use a different method in determining the teams that would enter the postseason. Instead of one pennant chase, you have two of them since the strike occurred in July. The teams with the best record in each half would be given a playoff berth. Even though it did wind up preventing two teams with overall superior records to those who actually made it (because of course baseball loves tossing anomalies in the strangest moments), it gave every team in the final months a refreshed equal opportunity for a playoff spot. The strike should have killed baseball temporarily, but instead we had Fernandomania, an excellent NLCS (sorry Expos), an entertaining World Series with the third-highest TV ratings in the history of the Fall Classic. This strike had very minimal ramifications and baseball life kinda moved on until the collusion issues which would eventually lead to the way more devastating strike of 1994. But that’s another story.
The biggest voice in baseball to champion this split-season idea today is John Smoltz, who back in 2018 jump-started the conversation about the 1981 season format to mixed reviews. Some agreed with the mental refresher of having a “second” half where everyone reverts back to 0, while some point out that teams that win the 1st half are less likely to compete altogether. All good points, but the split-season format would allow for a shorter regular season, which many baseball fans (like myself) believe is quite possibly the biggest hindrance in drawing in new fans. The sometimes-overlong marathon of baseball would instead become two elongated sprints which gives a team two opportunities to make the playoffs.
Side-Note: With expanded postseason, its rather impossible for 1981 to repeat thanks to expansion and format, but I’m sure what Smoltz wants is a first-round playoff setup where each division has their matchups to determine the actual division winner before we move to the Wild Card Games, THEN go to the Wild Card Round. So if Yankees win the first half and the Rays win the second (or in NL if the Cubs win the first half, and the Cardinals win the second), then they have to play a 3 or 5 game set to determine Division WINNER, and the loser has to hope their record is strong enough for a Wild Card Game. Alright back to topic.
The TV ratings in 2020 have gone up, and not just across the board, but among women and the younger crowd. It is fairly early to determine a true reason or reasons, but Major League Baseball has to be sighing in intense relief because their delayed period was a PR nightmare between the Astros, Red Sox, Rob Manfred being terrible, random secret envelope related to the Yankees, Rob Manfred being terrible (repetition was warranted), and ownership/player relations at its absolute lowest since 1994. IN SPITE of all that, and having to compete with postseason tournaments of soccer, basketball, AND hockey, MLB ratings remain strong. So one has to look at the product.
Shorter season, shorter games, extra innings matchups that are usually stopped, more divisional matchups, bitterness over the Astros, more intense games, about 95% of baseball still in the playoff hunt, and a lot of wild changes has created the perfect recipe for ratings that should make the league happy----even in the midst of a pandemic with zero fans and an upcoming labor showdown that’s guaranteed to turn ugly.
As a baseball purist, I HATE HATE HATE to admit it, but some of the changes I was screaming about months ago are producing surprisingly good results---the 10th inning chaos, the 7-inning doubleheaders, and the expanded playoff format which somehow got even the Orioles and Marlins involved enough to make noise. Ugh. The purist in me is crying, while the sinister progressive side in me is smirking. But it appears that some of these controversial changes have actually given the sport a small burst of unexpected life, as the games have remained its intensity under the circumstances—with the Astros remaining the villains of baseball. We even have the San Diego Padres, the Baltimore Orioles, and *gulp*, the Miami Marlins in playoff positioning. 2020 you wild pitch.
The second thing that happened in 2020 sports is the NBA Bubble and the unexpected emergence of multiple teams. Declared essentially dead three months ago, the Blazers busted out the gate in the Bubble Games and snatched the 8th spot from the Grizzlies and Pelicans. The Suns literally won every game and were so dominant that social media blew up when it was declared that the Suns were mathematically eliminated only because of pre-Coronavirus results. The Phoenix Suns deserved better by the way.
On the Eastern Conference, the Magic started making some noise before unfortunate injuries (Johnathan Issac would have pushed the Bucks/Magic series to at least 6), same with the Pacers and Nets. Now, we have the Mavericks giving the Clippers some major problems and could even upset them in the opening round. The Bubble Games felt like it was a completely different season, as it wasn’t the Lakers or the Bucks winning, it was the Suns, Blazers, Pacers, and even Nets appearing to be the better teams. All these storylines drove up the interest of the NBA during a questionable period in the midst of a horrifyingly tragic year.
It was as if the Bubble Games was a fresh slate and a chance for teams to restart and re-establish themselves. We see even the Thunder giving the Rockets a challenge, and an injury-laden Magic squad frustrate the first-seeded Bucks. This type of refresh would be perfect for Major League Baseball in the middle of a season, after the All-Star Break. The best way to accomplish this mental refresh would be to offer a split-season format which starts everybody at 0 in the latter half of the year. This would not only excite the teams that struggled or played poorly in the beginning, but would excite all the fanbases for a longer period of time because technically, nobody is going to be eliminated until we hit late-August.
The Coronavirus Era has been a tragedy, don’t get me wrong. First and foremost, Black Lives Matter, Trump has to fucking go, and its time for new leadership to steer this ship away from troublesome waters. But, secondly, the pandemic era has also revealed some potential for Major League Baseball to take advantage of, as their shortened season with stronger focus on regional matchups has created an uptick in interest of the sport.
The best way to harness this interest is to split regular seasons into halves, which would drive up intensity of each game, would add importance to each divisional matchup, and would give hope and excitement to all the fanbases for a lengthier time. Injuries with long recovery times no longer feels like a death sentence, a terrible May and June performance doesn’t spell regular season doom, and most importantly the overall quality of the season will increase dramatically with playoff implication matchups late AND earlier in the year. Baseball does have a deep fanbase, it just needs to repackage itself on the regular season side to become more accessible to those curious and interested in joining the mayhem and madness of the sport.
P.S. 144 Games. 72 Games each half.
On each half: 8 games against divisional opponents. 4 games against everyone else in your schedule.