Why can't we get leagues like that?
I hate the third wild card with the byes and this is just another reason. The old new system with the two wildcards playing a one game playoff got you quicker playoffs, more first round drama, and better teams in the tournament.
Couldn't agree more, even though my memory is we are in the minority here. I wonder whether this has changed, but for years I would argue with people in these threads who wanted a Best-of-3 playoff series for the Wild Card round. It was a little gimmicky, but so is the concept of the Wild Card to me. The one-game Wild Card playoffs were appointment TV for me. The Sox/Yankees Wild Card game in '21 is almost certainly my favorite single Red Sox game since Game 5 of the 2018 WS .
Meanwhile, the addition of the 3rd Wild Card was always going to water down the playoffs, and MLB got what it deserved last season: a World Series matching an 84-win #6 seed with a 90-win #5 seed, and
the worst TV ratings for a World Series in history (down ~20% from '21 & '22, and sure you can chalk that up to a smaller TV market in Arizona but the point stands that the team wouldn't have even been in the playoffs prior to 2023).
But I don't see anything changing.
The cat is out of the bag. We're talking about significant revenue and ticket sales from all these extra playoff games, not to mention attendance/revenue in September for teams that are still in contention for the 3rd Wild Card instead of being out of it.
And if it means that a few of these "playoff" games are played at 3pm ET on a weekday (a few of them in front of a half-full stadium), I think the owners are fine with that tradeoff (credit to the crowds in Minnesota, though, who I remember had incredible energy).
https://frontofficesports.com/mlb-momentum-takes-hit-from-playoff-ratings-dip-format-debate/#:~:text=The league recorded an 18,year's average of 2.73 million.
The league recorded an 18% decline in average viewership for the wild card round, as the four two-game sweeps on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 collectively averaged 2.25 million viewers, down from last year’s average of 2.73 million.
