There are a number of reasons I gravitated towards baseball and not football as a kid. I think Monday Night Baseball had something to do with that. I could stay up later in the summer to catch a game. Couldn't do that with football.
The first thing I always think of when I hear Monday Night Baseball is watching Mark Fidrych stymie the Yankees on June 28, 1976. The whole thing feels so...pure.
Excellent point about bedtime when you were a kid. Used to frustrate the hell out of me when my mom would tell me to go to bed during a competitive MNF game. I just wish MNB had stuck around a little longer. I only caught the tail end of it when I was still very young.
And I know we have state-of-the-art coverage now, and I'm not complaining, but watching the YouTube link, there's something about the presentation from then that was so endearing. I'm not sure if that comes from the coverage or the game itself (probably a bit of both), but it's noteworthy how striking it is. I don't want to come off as the old guy complaining about how much better things used to be— even though Nostalgia is in the name of my newsletter, I know how much of a trap it can be— but there really was something special about that era of the game that I don't necessarily feel now. Maybe that has more to do with me than the game, because I'm not someone who hates the modern game, but I'd be lying if I denied it.
I’m not gonna lie, it isn’t much easier to see Royals games today than it was back then! Feels impossible to fine a way to stream Royals games that doesn’t require you to jump through a dozen hoops and pay a bajillion dollars. (Unless you, erm, use a very legal streaming website to watch them)
Agreed. My readers are probably getting tired of hearing me beat this drum, but I think accessibility to games is the biggest problem MLB has right now. Games are on more platforms than ever now, but hardly any of them are actually easy or cheap to watch. That trickles down to other aspects as well, and KC is a great example of that. Traditionally, it's been a great baseball market, and it still is near the top in local viewing, but all the hoops one has to jump through to watch them has the biggest effect on casual fans. And I believe there's a direct connection from that to why they struggle to fill just half the K for most games, despite the Royals being a contending team coming off a playoff appearance. Of course, years of 100-loss baseball don't help either, but that's a different discussion. Even so, casual fans have a tendency to jump on the bandwagon quickly whenever there's success, which is the way it should be, but that's a lot harder to do if they're not getting any exposure to the product.
Anecdote, not data, but even here in Arkansas I have to jump through hoops (VPN) due to the ridiculous blackout policy. I guess FanDuel did start a streaming package here that includes the Royals/Cardinals/Thunder/Grizzlies (which is my NBA team; can I pick 'em or what?) but I'd already paid for the VPN. Anyway, I'm seven hours from the K, so the blackout policy totally makes sense.
Totally. I have a friend in Iowa who is blacked out for the Royals, Cards, Cubs, White Sox, and Twins. I think that's all of them, but that's insane. I'm paying for the FanDuel app because YouTube TV hasn't had Royals coverage since Fox sold to Diamond/Sinclair. They haven't had MLB Network for years either.
The NBA still has its own blackout issues. I can't watch regular season home games on TNT or ESPN for the Thunder (4.5 hours away) or Nuggets (8 hours away). The Thunder are on the Royals FanDuel app, but the NBA's national coverage is so much better that it doesn't seem as bad as MLB's. I have a feeling MLB is going to wreck itself in the labor fight coming after next season, but if they can somehow avoid the worst of that, the first thing I would do if I was commissioner is address media and accessibility. Based on Manfred's comments following the ESPN split, however, I'm not terribly optimistic.
I miss MNB as well Patrick. That and weekends was the only games I got to watch back while growing up in Wichita, KS. I'm lucky enough to have FanDuel where I can watch the Braves almost every night throughout the season. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
There are a number of reasons I gravitated towards baseball and not football as a kid. I think Monday Night Baseball had something to do with that. I could stay up later in the summer to catch a game. Couldn't do that with football.
The first thing I always think of when I hear Monday Night Baseball is watching Mark Fidrych stymie the Yankees on June 28, 1976. The whole thing feels so...pure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwGj4VfCreg
Excellent point about bedtime when you were a kid. Used to frustrate the hell out of me when my mom would tell me to go to bed during a competitive MNF game. I just wish MNB had stuck around a little longer. I only caught the tail end of it when I was still very young.
And I know we have state-of-the-art coverage now, and I'm not complaining, but watching the YouTube link, there's something about the presentation from then that was so endearing. I'm not sure if that comes from the coverage or the game itself (probably a bit of both), but it's noteworthy how striking it is. I don't want to come off as the old guy complaining about how much better things used to be— even though Nostalgia is in the name of my newsletter, I know how much of a trap it can be— but there really was something special about that era of the game that I don't necessarily feel now. Maybe that has more to do with me than the game, because I'm not someone who hates the modern game, but I'd be lying if I denied it.
I’m not gonna lie, it isn’t much easier to see Royals games today than it was back then! Feels impossible to fine a way to stream Royals games that doesn’t require you to jump through a dozen hoops and pay a bajillion dollars. (Unless you, erm, use a very legal streaming website to watch them)
Agreed. My readers are probably getting tired of hearing me beat this drum, but I think accessibility to games is the biggest problem MLB has right now. Games are on more platforms than ever now, but hardly any of them are actually easy or cheap to watch. That trickles down to other aspects as well, and KC is a great example of that. Traditionally, it's been a great baseball market, and it still is near the top in local viewing, but all the hoops one has to jump through to watch them has the biggest effect on casual fans. And I believe there's a direct connection from that to why they struggle to fill just half the K for most games, despite the Royals being a contending team coming off a playoff appearance. Of course, years of 100-loss baseball don't help either, but that's a different discussion. Even so, casual fans have a tendency to jump on the bandwagon quickly whenever there's success, which is the way it should be, but that's a lot harder to do if they're not getting any exposure to the product.
Anecdote, not data, but even here in Arkansas I have to jump through hoops (VPN) due to the ridiculous blackout policy. I guess FanDuel did start a streaming package here that includes the Royals/Cardinals/Thunder/Grizzlies (which is my NBA team; can I pick 'em or what?) but I'd already paid for the VPN. Anyway, I'm seven hours from the K, so the blackout policy totally makes sense.
Totally. I have a friend in Iowa who is blacked out for the Royals, Cards, Cubs, White Sox, and Twins. I think that's all of them, but that's insane. I'm paying for the FanDuel app because YouTube TV hasn't had Royals coverage since Fox sold to Diamond/Sinclair. They haven't had MLB Network for years either.
The NBA still has its own blackout issues. I can't watch regular season home games on TNT or ESPN for the Thunder (4.5 hours away) or Nuggets (8 hours away). The Thunder are on the Royals FanDuel app, but the NBA's national coverage is so much better that it doesn't seem as bad as MLB's. I have a feeling MLB is going to wreck itself in the labor fight coming after next season, but if they can somehow avoid the worst of that, the first thing I would do if I was commissioner is address media and accessibility. Based on Manfred's comments following the ESPN split, however, I'm not terribly optimistic.
I miss MNB as well Patrick. That and weekends was the only games I got to watch back while growing up in Wichita, KS. I'm lucky enough to have FanDuel where I can watch the Braves almost every night throughout the season. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Thanks for reading them!