Sportoberfest!

October is always a fun month in sports.  NFL kicks into high gear and the MLB playoffs start. It is pretty much the only month when baseball is relevant and must-watch TV. I follow baseball and keep an eye on it all season long, but I almost never watch an entire game or even a couple of innings straight on TV during the regular season.  I am sure I am less engaged with MLB because the teams I care about, the Oakland A’s and the Arizona Diamondbacks, have not been great the last few years, though the DBacks did have a good season and made the playoffs this year.  But even otherwise, I am just not sure who watches regular season MLB games on TV religiously anymore. There are several reasons for that. The game doesn’t have great stars since the previous generation has left the building and the next generation stars like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper have not been in the biggest of stages or won consistently yet. As much as I didn’t like the Yankee dynasty, the lack of a dominant team like them also hurts the league. Love them or hate them, it turns out we need teams like the Yankees and the Patriots and the Warriors.

Also, I feel like our entertainment choices and consumption patterns have changed even compared to just 5 years back and I can’t imagine people sitting on their couch and watching baseball games uninterrupted these days. If we already had way too many TV channels 10 years back, now we have way too many entertainment platforms, each with multiple binge watching “channels” or options. The net-net of it all is, baseball as a sport is in trouble and is becoming less and less culturally relevant. I do have to say the macro-economic numbers from MLB tells us a different story. They are raking in more money than ever before and the player salaries are sky rocketing as always. Last I heard, the stadium attendance might be going up too and even the TV numbers are not alarming in anyway . Of course, the Cubs playing an amazing 7-game World Series last year helps TV ratings, though the league can’t count on a storyline like that every year.  MLB has been lucky this year too as they got the Yankees, Astros, Dodgers, and the Cubs in the Championship series. That’s 4 of the largest TV markets in the country.

Despite all of that high-level data, there is something off with baseball and it just doesn’t feel like the sport of the future. It doesn’t have the star power of the NBA or the gambling stranglehold of the NFL. With all that said, the MLB playoffs are always watchable and fun. The drama and the level of competition are top-notch. You can’t take your eyes off a Clayton Kershaw versus Dallas Keuchel matchup in the playoffs when a single pitch or a hit can decide the game. Having a likeable superstar like Jose Altuve in the World Series is a huge plus too. Maybe he should be the next big star the game should be pushing. I totally expect the Astros to win this World Series, though the Dodgers are probably more talented on the pitching side. It will be a great story for Houston after the devastating hurricane. I wouldn’t mind a long and exciting World Series given that these really are the only MLB games I have watched all season.

What makes this October especially special is the early start of the NBA season. Right now, we have all three leagues in-season plus College football and the NHL if you care. There are only a handful dates in the history when we have had all 3 pro leagues in action. It’s usually in late October or early November when the World Series is wrapping up and the NBA is starting off. But now, we are having several such days thanks to the NBA schedule change. I do wonder if the early start of the NBA is affecting the World Series ratings. You can’t complain during a week like this one when you can go from Monday Night football to World Series games on Tuesday and Wednesday to a NBA double header on TNT Thursday night back to World Series on Friday and wrap the week up with college football on Saturday and NFL on Sunday. Of course, I left out several other NBA games one could have watched through the week, not to mention the usually unwatchable Thursday Night football. In any case, mucho options for us sports fans! Let’s drink it all in while it lasts.

Off-season and mid-season

The biggest news of the summer has been Dwight Howard signing with Houston. He agreed to terms a week or so back, but I was not going to write about it until he was officially signed and introduced in person. That happened yesterday and we can now be sure he will not flip-flop anymore or throw some tantrum. To be fair to Dwight, his off-season was relatively quick and easy compared to the drama he created last year in Orlando. The media attention was obviously elevated because he is a superstar, biggest name in the market, and because it involved the LA Fakers. Ultimately, he did make the right basketball decision in going with the talented, young roster in Houston. The Lakers have an aging, injured roster. I would have been scared to re-up with them as well  if I was Dwight.

The Lakers needed Dwight more than he needed the Lakers. It would be a completely different argument if Kobe was 28 years old, but he is not. After next season, Nash is literally the only guy on contract. Thats a lot of flexibility and cap-room and you can easily see a franchise like the Lakers re-loading in a hurry. But if you are Dwight, that's just way too much uncertainty. And given the emotional and other kinds of bonds Kobe has with the franchise, you have to assume the Lakers will re-invest a lot of that cap-room in an even older Kobe next year. So Howard went with a more stable situation in Houston. Can't really blame him. As for the Lakers, it's not too bad for them either. They got Kobe for a year and a massive cap-room in 2014 when LeBron, Wade, and Carmelo (and Kobe) become free agents. I can't see any of them going to the Fakers, but you never know.

As NBA's off-season is moving along, baseball is at it's midway point. The home run derby was today and the A's Yoenis Cespedes won it. Well deserved recognition for the best slugger mainstream America has never heard of. Good things seem to be happening in baseball this season with both the A's and Diamondbacks - the teams I care the most about, are leading their respective divisions. The A's are in a dog fight for the division and it's going to be tight till the final weeks of the season. But the young A's seem very capable of seeing this through. This is shaping to be a good season, but the steroid scandal is supposed to take many players down very soon. I don't have a problem with that, but I am worried MLB will screw it up and create a big mess. The players association has enough juice to make things messy plus that's generally the way Bud rolls. Commish Bud Selig will find a way to screw this up.