The Super Bowl is one of the biggest sporting events on the entire planet, where two football teams are battling for the Lombardi Trophy at a neutral site, instead of being inside of their home stadium. MLB could be looking to do the same thing, so today, we are going to answer the question if MLB should have a neutral city host the World Series.
Betting games would be a lot easier as well with the ballpark dimensions and everything accounted for, so the expert picks have some time to determine where to go with it. Let’s talk about if this should be a thought going through the league office for the future.
Reason For A Neutral City
With the World Series being throughout the end of October and early November, there is an issue in terms of weather. Imagine a World Series game taking place in a cold climate like Minnesota, where you can have a lot less fans show up to the stadium due to it being outside.
Then, you have the weather delay aspect, as some locations are more susceptible to weather delays than others throughout the country. Having the game be played inside stadiums with a roof guarantees the game is played on time and without interruption. Having a centralized place to get World Series tickets will make it feel a little bit more special as it is highlighted throughout the country and can travel like the All-Star Game does each year.
Reason Against A Neutral City
Unlike football, baseball is considered to be a regional sport. That means that fans are more centralized to their team than they are to the league, so fans of the Atlanta Braves are not going to care if the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox compete in the World Series. If their team is not playing, most fans do not watch the rest of the league like other sports.
Having it in a centralized stadium means that there will be a struggle to get that authentic stadium roar like we have throughout the playoffs. Just think of how the new Yankee Stadium was buzzing after going down 3-0 in the first inning of the AL Wild Card Game, and then having shortstop Didi Gregorius hit a three-run home run to tie the game up. We lose those moments if we have it at a neutral site compared to that home market in their own building.
So What Should MLB Do?
As cool as it would be to have the game of baseball in a centralized location where we do not have to worry about weather delays or anything of that nature, taking the most important games away from the die-hard fans would be nothing short of criminal. The atmosphere for any playoff game, let alone a World Series game, is incredible no matter where you are located, and having the fans not be a part of the process would be terrible to think about.
Like it or not, baseball is a truly regional sport, and although we can proclaim it to be the National Pasttime of the United States, it would be hard to find a fan of the Oakland Athletics on the east coast while in other sports there are fans of every team scattered around the entire country. Major League Baseball needs to fix its stadium issue of not having at least a retractable roof on every stadium to avoid weather delays in the game of baseball and have to continue to grow the sport even more to a national audience if they ever want to get to this point.
This is not the Super Bowl where you take some time off work and go to the game, as the World Series is anywhere from four-to-seven games and could be a massive chunk of time. This is a cool idea in theory, but should not be implemented at all.
