I feel bad for young baseball fans in the Eastern and Central time zones. I really do. I’ve said for years, after growing up in the Pacific Time zone, that where we live, in the Mountain Time zone, is the best place to be for sports viewing. It’s the main reason I am so against the move to permanently eliminate the turning back of the clock in our State which would put us on Central time from November to April. Some of my best sports memories from being a kid are watching the baseball playoffs or NBA playoffs before going to bed. Game one of the World Series this year went 14-innings and; after starting at 8:06 on the east coast, it ended, on a Tuesday night after 1:00am. Baseball wonders why it is losing generations of new fans. Really? I 100% understand why it is this way. The networks, in this case FOX, pay millions and millions of dollars for the rights to televise these games. They need to, and deserve to make back that money by maximizing ratings and thus, revenue. 8:06 on the east coast is 5:06 on the west coast. It is a real issue…always has been. Start these games at 7:06 on the east coast/4:06 in the west….especially when there isn’t a west coast team involved. I don’t know that the ratings will drop tremendously, and you will be able to reach so many more young viewers. If you don’t make fans out of the kids now, they won’t be fans in 20-years from now. And if they’re not fans in 20-years, who is going to be watching then…no matter what times the games start?
