The commissioner, Rob Manfred, was not a fan favorite prior to this offseason. He’s the face of the current CBA where the Lux tax limit has been treated like a real cap for third time offenders, essentially pulling big markets out of the market for big name FAs. The fact that Harper and Machado ended up in small markets was the worst thing for the MLB. But this was collectively bargained and they can change it for 22.
Manfred has been the face of declining viewership and has done nothing to push the game to the younger generation. The best player in the game isn’t marketed at all. The second best player wasn’t marketed at all either (Betts). The individual markets were handling marketing themselves, but MLB push marketing doesn’t exist. Also, the MLB regulates their highlights to the point where you need to pay for them. Bauer has a great comment on this comparing the NBA (where a LeBron James bounce pass assist is viral within 10 seconds) to the MLB (without paying, you cannot see any Mike Trout highlights). Instead, Manfred thinks the length of the game is the issue. If you love baseball, you don’t care how long it is. If you cared about the younger generation, the games would be on when kids are awake. But no, now we have to regulate mound visits (which were necessary due to cheating) and batter limits for pitchers.
But this year’s handling of the Astros crisis is the war cry for a new commish. The players got full immunity, which makes some sense to avoid fighting the union, but was actually demonized by the players themselves. Then the commish calls the WS trophy a “piece of metal” thereby diminishing the spoils for winning a title. The commish just diminished his own title trophy. That’s insane. The time has come
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Originally Posted by jacksonianmarch
