By: EFE Updated 22 Apr 2022, 10: 30 am EDT
The Mexican Baseball League (LMB) will cut the duration of the games from nine to seven innings in two games per week.
“The sport that is not a more attractive product for television in the future is a sport that will die”, explained this Friday the president of the LMB, Horacio de la Vega, a Mexican Olympic pentathlon athlete in Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000.
The new measure was announced on April 6 and consists of the games on Tuesdays and Wednesday, in which there is less attendance in the stadiums, only seven tickets are played . De la Vega considered this new stipulation as an “experiment” to see if the fans get used to it and it remains a permanent measure.
The head of the summer baseball circuit in Mexico recognized that “ there is no way” that a sport today lasts more than three hours not only because it complicates its broadcast, but also makes the younger audiences not interested; A large part of the LMB fans are between 45 and 55 years.
Among the measures that have been applied in its management are limiting the visits of the ‘coaches’ to the mound and that pitchers must face at least three batters before leaving the game, but none had been so criticized by players and fans as the reduction of chapters.
“These decisions only damage the essence of the game and all for money. This will not bring young generations to watch baseball and it will lose genuine fans who grew up watching real baseball”, lamented Cuban Henry Urrutia, Saraperos first baseman of Saltillo.
Horacio de la Vega defended the measure, endorsed by the owners of the 18 LMB teams, noting that it already had an immediate effect as they grew by 22 percent in the television channels that will broadcast the duels.
In addition to improving the finances of the teams, the executive revealed that the increase in television channels has made the LMB sustainable and that soon they can distribute the resources of the television agreements among all the directors of the novenas.“We boast of being a sport familiar and I think we are, but a family sport that starts at 7-8 at night and ends at one in the morning, it is not such a familiar sport because you do not take your children to an event of such duration and at times that are not accessible for children to attend in family”.
Also read:
He will not travel either: Gerardo ‘Tata’ Martino will stay in Mexico and will not be in the friendly against Guatemala
Luis Fernando Tena reveals the squad to face El Salvador and Mexico in friendlies
Controversial statements: Carlos Salcido puts Chivas’ league title above Mexico’s gold medal at the London Olympics