FanPost

Narrative Seasons (The schedule is whack!)

The idea that the Braves are playing the Nationals for the first time this season is so strange it's almost hard to believe. Not only does it seem off from a competitive point of view - there's also a lack in narrative integrity.

My PhD is in mythology. I chair a department at a film and performing arts college. Narrative structure is central to my career and day-to-day responsibilities. As far as narrative structure goes, MLB is leaving a lot on the table. By looking at the season as a single story and synchronizing the league's narrative clocks, the volume with which fans echo the year's biggest narratives would increase by orders of magnitude.

To structure the season as a single narrative that follows a central arc, my recommendation would be something more like what I've outlined below. There are a thousand theoretical notes about why what when. I mostly left those out in favor of focusing on the season itself.

Gauntlets: One of the main concepts I'd like to see employed is the division of one long season into several short seasons worth caring about -- I'm calling them gauntlets. If teams started the season with 24 games against their division, that's a short high-stakes season worth caring about in and of itself. If there was a month in which teams played every team outside their division, that would be a fun month all by itself with its own (emergent) narrative opportunities. The schedule below is built around these kind of short seasons that then combine as a kind of megazord super season.

Another pathway to really interesting narrative opportunities is the wildcard. There are two short seasons for which I'd like to offer wildcard berths but will reserve more of my thoughts until after the outline.

PREAMBLE - Feb 23-March 31 - Spring Training

ACT 1 – April 1 - April 26

  • INCITING INCIDENT: Opening Day
  • DEPARTURE: 24 Divisional Games (3 Home & 3 Away per club)

ACT 2.1 - April 27 -July 11 (Road of Trials)

  • 30 League Games (15 home v Division B, 15 away v Division A)
  • 5 Interleague Games - not in matching division
  • SUPER 2 CALL UP
  • 24 Game Regional Championship (12 games in division, 15 Inter-league games in matching division)
  • MIDPOINT – All Star Break (HR Derby, Futures, All Star)

ACT 2.2 - July 12-July 31 (Ordeal)

  • 8 International Games (All Home Games)
  • 12 Divisional Games
  • JULY 31 TRADE DEADLINE

ACT 3 – August 1 - Sept. 31 (Road Back)

  • 32 League Games (16 away v. division A & 16 home v Division B)
  • SEPTEMBER CALL UPS (& HomeComing)
  • 24 Divisional Games (3 Home & 3 Away per team)
In General - This level of narrative organization would focus the potency of league-wide storytelling.

Divisional Games - Part of why I like 24 divisional games at the beginning and end is because I think you should have to be good at the beginning and end to make the playoffs. I want to see teams incentivized to start the year at full strength. That the Nationals could suck this bad for a third of the season but still have the potential to get their act together for a whole season of games vs. their division rival undermines the season's competitive integrity.

League Tours - I love the idea of all the games within a division being against a single opposing division. It creates awesome narrative opportunities. Not only is there more attention span and focus on team and player narratives, there's also more consistency and opportunity to more deeply engage regional narratives. This is IMPORTANT -- Baseball is supposed to be part of American culture, and I believe this would enhance its ability to participate. If the West Coast tour was really a West Coast tour in which we played all the NLW teams in a sequence, you'd be able to develop and deliver significantly more narrative depth.

Travel - Note that the first and last months of the season would require far less travel, as they'd all be within the division. The same is true of the 24 game regional tournament. The 8 international games after the All Star Break are also all home games (followed by a set of divisional series). During the two 30 game stretches outside the division there are two 15 game stretches on the road, but there are also two 15-game homestands, AND, all the road games are within a single division. Teams already average a couple 15 game road trips a season -- these would at least all be in the same time zone and with less travel between. As a whole, this should be a less taxing schedule. Some might point out that two-weeks is too long to go without a home game. I disagree. I think a more dramatic ebb and flow of home and away games would result in more home-game attendance and away game viewing. The rituals would tighten and differentiate beautifully.

Wild Card - Without going into my schematics, I'll just say that I think there's a huge opportunity with the wildcard. I'd love to see the regional tournament as a path to the playoffs. I'd also love to see international teams enter the playoffs through the wildcard structure.

Regional Championship - I'd give a wildcard berth to the winner, and yes, it could be earned mid-season. And yes, it would be hard on the NL East to face the AL East more often, but I'm OK with that. I think EASTERN baseball would be elevated in its own way. West Coast Baseball, Central Baseball -- you don't get to brand those as coherent so long as they're divided by league and united by nothing.

International Games - This is when you sharpen the pitch fork - I know... But I wanted to throw it in there as something I would personally love to see... I've thought about how to integrate international baseball and to make the World Series a true WORLD Series. What I'd do is make a short 8-game stretch--all home games--in which MLB teams host international teams. Five teams per division, two games per matchup. MLB players aren't up to speed in April, and you can't just let international teams into the tournament come October, so you've got to find a way for them to earn a wild-card berth in the middle of the season. The international wildcard winner(s) would then join the wildcard pools at the start of the playoffs. By involving 30 visiting teams for those games you avoid the creation of international all star teams. You'd also, A, expand MLB's audience into the local audiences in a major way, making MLB a much more global sport (like FIFA), and B, you'd give the MLB a way to influence the activities of international leagues. For example, you might enable the 6 best leagues to send their top 5 teams. Every league would want in on this. You couldn't lock in the same 6 leagues every year. So you'd have to create a way for the world's leagues to compete to be in those top 6. The MLB is going to be involved in those games, and they're going to make money from those games, and the American Audience would care to watch those games.



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