NEWSLETTER
Continued tweaking under the hood this week to improve site performance and user experience. I’m down to doing stuff that might be like a 0.02% improvement, but I’m pretty obsessive, and I might as well fixate on that stuff right now …
• You had to know this was coming – or, I should say, MLB had to know this was coming – because standing by the traditional (and already fan-un-friendly) rainout policy makes absolutely no sense when the games are being “postponed” because of a global pandemic that will unequivocally and obviously preclude them from simply being rescheduled in any normal way this year:
BREAKING: MLB, all 30 teams, StubHub, Ticketmaster sued over failure to provide ticket refunds: https://t.co/IEahFyIj2Q
— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) April 21, 2020
• Among the harsh language from the suit:
“While many businesses across this country have acted lawfully and ethically by providing consumers with refunds for events that will never occur during this pandemic, sometimes at the risk of bankruptcy, it remains notable that America’s pastime — baseball — is refusing to do right by its fans. As stadiums remain empty for the foreseeable future, baseball fans are stuck with expensive and unusable tickets for unplayable games in the midst of this economic crisis.”
• I can certainly understand why teams don’t want to simply give up a lot of their cash reserves – hey, who does? – but you’re talking about fans who are sitting on worthless tickets for which they’ve pre-committed a whole lot of money. Worse, in many situations, you’re talking about season ticket holders, who are among your most important and most valuable fans. It sucks that it had to come to a lawsuit to get this figured out, but teams (and other providers) need to get together with MLB and formulate an official plan for this. Even if you’re desperately clinging to the hope that there can be fan-attended games late in the would-be season, then you either officially “cancel” the first half of the season – so those tickets can be refunded – or, better, you cancel the whole thing, refund the tickets, and then pray to the gods of the market that you’ll be able to sell new tickets later in the year. (But, you already know the problem with that one: teams are afraid that even if they are later able to schedule fan-attended games, there’s no way they’d sell as many tickets in a COVID-touched world than they sold before this blight descended.)
• Anyway, for now, teams like the Cubs are at least trying to do something to help:
Cubs say they’re working through similar plan for fans as White Sox (5% interest added for ‘21 carryover of ‘20 $$ spent on canceled games), including 5% credit for season-ticket holders on what they’ve already paid on tickets.— Gordon Wittenmyer (@GDubCub) April 20, 2020
• Basically, the Cubs (and Sox) are saying, “We know you’ve now essentially given us a loan, so we’re going to pay you interest on that loan.” I don’t like that it’s the teams controlling that process rather than collaborating with the fans, but at least for now it’s a heckuva good interest rate.
• As Michael noted yesterday, the Cubs are also among the teams committing to paying employees through May, while the Padres are committing to much longer, but with pay cuts:
In addition to the 18 teams above that have pledged to pay through May, the San Diego Padres have committed to paying their baseball-operations staff for the entire season, sources tell ESPN. There will be pay cuts on a gradient, as @dennistlin said, but all will remain employed.— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) April 21, 2020
• The best sellers at Amazon right now in collectibles include Garbage Pail Kids, which, like, you remember those? Those were wild. #ad
• Christopher Morel is one of those guys where the ball just sounds different coming off his bat. Look at the aggressive whip in his swing and you can see why:
A lesser-known third baseman putting up numbers with the best.
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) April 20, 2020
Minor League Monday Profile: Christopher Morelhttps://t.co/9s8DWpuCwq pic.twitter.com/VmMePAXuSc
• We mentioned the 1998 Wild Card play-in game yesterday, and it turns out it is one of the classic games airing on MLBN this week:
Which throwback matchups are you looking forward to?#MLBAtHome pic.twitter.com/ZjtoSClEFN
— MLB (@MLB) April 20, 2020
• The latest podcast episode from our show at The Athletic:
https://twitter.com/TheAthleticCHI/status/1252251853007585281
