May 07, 2007
Drafty
ESPN and Major League Baseball reached an agreement to broadcast the first round of the June draft:
For the first time in its history, the baseball entry draft will be aired live on ESPN2. Coverage will begin on Thursday, June 7th at 2 p.m. ET from Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex in Orlando, Fla. The broadcast will end at 6 p.m. ET.
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig said the telecast, "will give fans access to see this critical function of an organization's development. This is an idea whose time has come."
Each team's first round pick will be televised and all clubs will have a maximum of five minutes to make their selections.
Now if we could just get MLB to allow trading of draft picks, that would makes things really interesting. I was at the 1993 expansion draft, and it was a lot of fun. I have to think giving everyone a Disney World vacation figured in getting the broadcast.
Posted by David Pinto at
03:21 PM
|
Draft
|
TrackBack (0)
Maybe, but the difference between the MLB expansion draft (and for that matter the NBA and NFL drafts) and the MLB amateur draft is that none of the players are going to make an impact for years, if they make it to the bigs at all.
That said, I'm still very excited to see how far Boras clients like Wieters and Brackman fall, but this is kinda the equivalent of watching a company invest money in a slowly-growing stock.
The bigger difference in my opinion between the MLB draft and the NFL (or NBA) is that the average fan has never heard of a single player that will get drafted. Everyone watched Oden and Durant throughout the season, but I know very few people that follow college baseball.
In fact, that brings me to another point. Why can't college baseball get more coverage? Shouldn't MLB want to promote the college game where it derived a large portion of its talent?
I think the first step MLB to help college is to assist with the costs of wood bats. I love the college game and the intensity, but I hate the "ping".
