Rob Manfred is missing the mark yet again when it comes to growing Major League Baseball.
The Tokyo Series opened early Tuesday morning in the United States and while the growth can happen internationally, the commissioner should be looking to grow the sport domestically first.
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“We do believe there are payoffs in the B’s: billions,” Manfred told Evan Drelich of The Athletic. “We have really stayed after Japan, but it takes time for something like this to grow. … Ohtani is like the accelerator. I mean, every once in a while, even we need to get lucky, right?”
While Ohtani is the accelerator for baseball’s international growth, he should’ve been the accelerator in the US when he signed with the Los Angeles Angels. Instead, Manfred has sat on his hands and done nothing.
Since Ohtani joined MLB, baseball has been put behind paywalls on streaming services like Apple TV, Peacock and now Roku. In that same time, the league announced it is ending its partnership with ESPN for “Sunday Night Baseball” while simultaneously raising the prices of MLB.TV on an annual basis with blackout restrictions for fans across the country.
Manfred working to grow the game in Japan instead of in the U.S. is like trying to walk with your shoes untied and then wondering why you fell on your face.
MLB can and certainly should grow internationally. However, there should be just as much concern with growing the game in the U.S. — and don’t try to justify doing that by changing some rules in the game.
Utilize social media to promote all 30 teams. If games are on streaming platforms, find a way to make them accessible to those watching on cable. Eliminate blackout restrictions, and stop raising the price yearly on MLB.TV subscriptions.
That’s how you grow the game of baseball in the United States. Making those changes would also have payoffs in the “B’s.”
Manfred is either oblivious to these obvious solutions or simply doesn’t care enough to fix what is currently broken.
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