The proposals began almost immediately after Spring Training stopped. MLB owners and executives are desperate to bring back Major League Baseball into people’s homes so that some type of revenue can start being generated. However, thus far, every proposal has been met with extreme challenges that proved too much to overcome.
First, there was the Arizona plan… then the Arizona/Florida plan… then the Arizona/Texas/Florida plan… and now it’s the 3-Division plan. In this plan, there would be 3 separate divisions of ten teams each, with each team playing in their own ballpark. The plan surfaced through a report by Bob Nightengale of USA Today, who said that MLB officials are “cautiously optimistic” that the season will start in late June, and no later than July 2, playing at least 100 regular season games. This plan would not include fans and the ten teams in each division would only play among themselves.
Of course, nothing can happen until medical experts agree that it is safe and widespread testing is available. Also, even with the 10 teams in each division only traveling to teams within their own division, there will still be plenty of travel. Under the current proposed divisions, teams like the San Francisco Giants would be traveling to places like Houston and Arlington, while the Yankees would travel to Miami. To further complicate matters, the plan calls for an abbreviate Spring Training in each teams’ Spring Training Complex. This would require even more moving around for the players and personnel.
What also must be taken into account is the fact that these games would be televised. Therefore, the amount of people at each game, even without fans, would easily be in the several hundreds. Think of the cameramen, reporters, producers, coaches, extended rosters, umpires, network personnel, announcers, clubhouse assistants, trainers, etc etc… and this would be in multiple states during a pandemic. The governors of these states would have to approve the plan and MLB would have to be prepared for the backlash it might receive from the general public, who, believe it or not, are not all baseball fans. Unless the social climate improved tenfold within the next 30 days, this plan simply feels impossible.