Major League Baseball Continues to Punish Small Markets, Even in MLB Playoffs

In the penultimate series of the major league baseball season, the American League Championship Series, which is an entertaining battle between the Toronto Blue Jays, who haven’t made the World Series since 1993, and the Seattle Mariners, who have never made the World Series in their franchise's history, took place at 5:00 p.m. EST.

These two teams aren’t as big as the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are playing in the NLCS, but these are precisely what Major League Baseball needs to grow its game. A 5:00 p.m. first pitch means Blue Jay fans will struggle to attend a game if they work a semi-normal job, and Seattle fans will be watching in the middle of a workday if they even want to watch it at all.

This has been a massive problem all postseason long. The league has been trying to make as many stand-alone games as possible, but in a sport like baseball, it shouldn’t be the case. Baseball is such a team-dependent sport for viewership, so you should make each game as simple to watch for the home team in every series. Instead, you have Cleveland and Chicago playing opening round games at 1 and 3 p.m., and the MLB golden geese of Boston, New York, and LA playing at primetime.

Baseball isn’t truly America’s pastime anymore, and they need to come to that realization. They want to compete with a sport like the NFL for viewership, but that’s a battle they will never win. However, because baseball’s regional networks cover a team almost 162 times a season, fans develop a strong attachment to their teams. They are far more likely to watch their team play over any other game, even if it’s a massive rivalry like the Yankees and Red Sox.

Outside of 2024, when the World Series was between the two biggest markets in the sport, every other major championship is going to outview baseball. MLB needs to realize that in today's world, baseball is going to be the little brother of sports viewership in the US. Take advantage of the loyal fans you have, and make the game marketable to them!

A semi-final game has no business taking place at 5 p.m. EST in the middle of the week. Die-hard fans have to shake up their whole lives to watch, and the average fan won’t be tuning in until the game's halfway over. Stop punishing small-market teams with horrible first pitch times. If you’re so desperate for standalone games, make the big markets deal with the bad first pitch times, too.

It’s such a disservice to the sport that MLB only cares about the viewership of the biggest markets in the league.