prime motivation<\/a> for the change.\u00c2\u00a0 Prime time audiences are higher during the week than they are during the weekend in the States and it was predicted that the viewer ratings would be higher for the whole series if the opening games reached a larger audience.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\nThe switch to a Wednesday night opener is probably not a big deal for fans in the States, but it’s a bit of a pain for British-based ‘baseball nuts’ (to borrow Jonny Gould’s phrase).\u00c2\u00a0 The World Series games start at approximately 01.05 in the morning over here (sometimes 01.30 after the opening ceremony has been strung out), which makes it difficult for many people to watch them live if they then have to get up and go to work\/college\/school a couple of hours after the final out has been made.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Although you can record the games and watch them back later, it’s not quite the same experience.\u00c2\u00a0 You also have the problem of trying to avoid the score, ‘Likely Lads’ style, before sitting down to watch it.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s not normally an issue with baseball games over here, but the sports sections of newspaper websites and the BBC will tell you who has won during the World Series if you’re not careful.<\/p>\n
Under the old schedule, the Saturday night\/early Sunday morning opener did at least offer British fans the chance to get in the World Series spirit and to join the crew on Five, tuxedoes and all, to watch the first game live.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
You had two main choices when it came to getting yourself ready for the early start: catch a few hours of sleep during Saturday evening and set the alarm clock to wake you up, often setting another alarm as well just to make sure, or going out for the night and then arriving back home (hopefully not too worse for wear) in time to settle down on the couch for the festivities to begin.\u00c2\u00a0 You could take in the game and then spend your Sunday snoozing.\u00c2\u00a0 What could be better?<\/p>\n
A 01.05 Thursday morning start isn’t quite so hospitable.\u00c2\u00a0 If you can take the day off work or have another way to fit in some sleep (no lectures until the afternoon, contracting a mystery one-day illness etc) then you can find a way around it.\u00c2\u00a0 Otherwise, it’s a case of taking matchsticks into work to keep your eyelids from slamming shut in the afternoon.<\/p>\n
A weekend start is better for us, but the big TV ratings (and advertising revenue) take precedence over the preferences of a few European baseball fans.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 And we’re all accustomed to suffering for our obsession in any case.\u00c2\u00a0 We can face the slight hardships along the way in the knowledge that a great World Series will more than make them worthwhile.<\/p>\n
I’m sure the Phillies and the Rays won’t let us down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was far from easy, but the Rays got there in the end.\u00c2\u00a0 A 3-1 victory over the Red Sox in game seven of the ALCS booked their date with the Phillies in this year’s World Series.\u00c2\u00a0 The NL representatives have been kicking their heels since getting past the Dodgers last Wednesday, but the Rays […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553],"class_list":["post-963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7314,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions\/7314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}