With the World Series coming to a close, there are a lot of people who are feeling disappointed. It has nothing to do with the season-ending injuries to Texas Rangers stars Adolis Garcia and Max Scherzer. Nor does it have anything to do with the Arizona Diamondbacks rolling with a bullpen game in a must-win situation.
Instead, there are a lot of baseball fans who are disappointed with how the playoffs turned out. Big market teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies came up short of the Fall Classic. Meanwhile, other teams powerhouses such as the New York Mets, New York Yankees, and Boston Red Sox couldn’t even make the expanded field.
The optics of a World Series matchup between two smaller market teams has triggered an outcry from baseball’s biggest voices. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told The Athletic’s Evan Drellich the league will have “a conversation about whether we have it right,” and it’s possible there could be a slight change in the coming years.
Big-market sportswriters and baseball fans will cry into their $45 New Era hats. However, there’s one group that proves that the current 12-team format is what’s best for the game, and it includes the Minnesota Twins.
The Twins didn’t make a deep postseason run, but they’re the type of team the current format is designed to help. Baseball went with its traditional four-team system until 1995, then Bud Selig introduced an eight-team format that eventually grew to 10 teams in 2012.
The additional teams helped spawn competitiveness throughout baseball, but it still carried an element of randomness as the Wild Card round was limited to only one game. After experimenting with a 16-team format as part of the pandemic-shortened season in 2020, baseball went to its current format in 2022. It includes a best-of-three Wild Card round, a best-of-five divisional round, and a best-of-seven format in the league championship series and the World Series.
By most accounts, the first year of the new format was a success. With more teams eligible for the playoffs, fewer teams were willing to sell at the deadline. It created more a competitive environment where more teams opted to go all-in as opposed to standing pat and hoping for a better draft pick.
When the playoff field was set, two Wild Card teams, the San Diego Padres and Philadelphia, met in the National League Championship Series. The Phillies took the Houston Astros to six games before ultimately falling in the World Series.
Most people agreed that this was a better way to set up the playoff system, and it showed in the ratings. According to Front Office Sports, each game averaged 2.73 million viewers during the four Wild Card series (Cleveland vs. Tampa Bay, Toronto vs. Seattle, St. Louis vs. Philadelphia, and the New York Mets vs. San Diego) in 2022. The qualifying teams also included two U.S. major media markets, New York and Philadelphia. It also included Toronto, which is considered to be the fourth-largest media market in North America based on population according to Sports Media Watch.
The addition of a Game 3 involving the Mets only drove those ratings higher and there was plenty of interest in the Wild Card round.
Unfortunately, this year’s Wild Card round didn’t have the same effect. The matchups (Minnesota vs. Toronto, Texas vs. Tampa Bay, Arizona vs. Milwaukee and Philadelphia vs. Miami) actually produced a higher average for U.S. media markets than last year’s Wild Card round. However, viewership dropped by 18 percent as each game averaged 2.25 million viewers according to Front Office Sports’ report.
The competitiveness of each series was one reason for the decline. All four series ended in a two-game sweep and six of the eight games were decided by three runs or more. The lack of a second super-team such as New York or Boston also drove the ratings down, which created less interest among the casual fan.
But there was still something to be said for the teams that were involved. The Diamondbacks were making their first playoff appearance since 2017. The Rangers were making their first playoff appearance since 2016, and the Miami Marlins were making their first appearance in a full season since winning the World Series in 2003.
Even going back to last year, teams that hadn’t experienced success were getting a taste of playoff baseball. The Seattle Mariners hadn’t been to the playoffs since 2001 before making the postseason last year. The Phillies hadn’t been to the postseason since 2011. The Mets were making their first appearance since 2016 and the Padres were making their first full-season appearance since 2006.
In each of these scenarios, baseball had a chance to make new fans. The same thing happened with Minnesota’s playoff run this year.
The 18-game postseason losing streak was a dark cloud that hung over the Twins, but this year’s team caused a new wave of fans to buy in. With Royce Lewis, Edouard Julien and Matt Wallner‘s breakouts complementing Carlos Correa‘s star power, the Twins were an attractive team for the first time in a long time. Many people wondered what they’ll do in the offseason.
The same goes for the teams currently in the World Series. A casual fan may not have known who Ketel Marte or Alek Thomas was at the beginning of October, but they’ve become big-time names who have drawn out a new legion of fans in Arizona.
You could see the same thing happening in Arlington, where Garcia trolled the Astros for seven games in the ALCS while Corey Seager, Marcus Semien, and Josh Jung rode shotgun on their way to their first World Series appearance since 2011.
In short, any team had a chance, which is something that Manfred noted while discussing the current format.
“That’s kind of how baseball playoffs are, and, frankly, how I think they should be,” Manfred said. “If the die was cast – meaning, that if I win 100 in the regular season, I’m going to win the World Series – I don’t think that’s as interesting as what we have witnessed over the last month.”
But even if the powers that be see all of this, it won’t be what makes their decision. Instead, baseball owners care about the money that comes with an expanded postseason. It was a contentious point when baseball attempted to implement the 16-team format during the pandemic-shortened season of 2020 and the 12-team format in the collective bargaining agreement in 2022.
That may be pennies to a team like the Yankees or Dodgers. But it could mean a world of difference to small- to mid-market teams like the Twins.
When the Twins made the playoffs in 2019, they were guaranteed just one home game under the previous format. Even if the Twins stole a game, the team would only be guaranteed two home playoff games in the old format, limiting the type of revenue they could bring home.
In the current format, the Twins were guaranteed two home games in the Wild Card round and another game in the divisional round. After winning Game 2 in Houston, the Twins got four home games, which doubles the amount of money they would have made under the previous format.
Then there’s the legion of fans who might decide to spend more money based on their team’s success. According to the Sports Business Journal, the Phillies saw their season ticket numbers rise to 13,000 after signing Bryce Harper in free agency in 2019. However, they saw it dip to 10,000 in the pandemic’s aftermath.
After reaching the World Series as the sixth seed last year, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the Phillies had roughly 15,250 season ticket holders entering this season.
Fans don’t want to hear about attendance and ratings, but it’s a key factor of what drives baseball. The reason why baseball hasn’t gone to an all-digital format to distribute its games on TV isn’t to screw the entire state of Iowa with blackout restrictions. Instead, it’s the concept of getting the ridiculous amount of money they’ve been promised to keep up with the big markets.
In conjunction, the big markets have resisted the idea because they would be walking away from TV deals that pay them six figures annually. That’s part of the reason why the players have begged baseball for things like a minor league pay scale or a revised service time agreement, and the owners have acted with the interest of getting every penny possible.
Sure, the World Series has been a disappointment, and watching a team win for the first time in over 20 years or the history of their franchise isn’t as exciting as watching the Yankees or Dodgers faceplant. But it’s not about the big markets. It’s about the small markets looking to keep up and how the rush to create new fans – and the money that comes with it – are benefitting from the new format.
