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My real fear is that the MLB response to the collapse of the RSN model is going to be to try and sell as many playoff games as possible and we end up with a two-month, 20-team playoff that airs on five streaming services and three linear channels. Anything to grab that national-TV money. At this point, they should just cut the regular season to 130 games, since those of us who love regular season baseball have lost that fight…
-- Adam K.
Well, I am certain we’re going to 14 playoff teams in 2027 and then 16 after a theoretical expansion in the 2030s. I am horrified by a 105-57 team being shoved into a best-of-three against a 79-83 team, but our sport is run by people who simply don’t understand baseball. They think it’s the NBA.
Your last point is the right one. They talk about slicing a week off the season, but if you’re going to have half the league make the playoffs, a 162-game, or 154-game, season is just dumb. Cut to five months, get the playoffs started in September, and limit the overlap with the NFL. You dump a lot of low-value inventory in March, April, and September this way. The owners will argue it’s a 20% cut in revenue but I doubt it’s even half that.
--J.
