Posted by MikeT23 on 3/25/2014 9:53:00 AM (view original):
Starting right in the middle of the NCAA tourney. I listen to ESPN radio all day during the week. If they mentioned it, I missed it completely. It never occurred to me that A) baseball would open on 3/22 B) baseball would open in Austrailia. Brutal idea and marketing by MLB.
Well, the purpose of the games is to help grow baseball in Australia, where it is taking off. Whether they should do that or not that with games that count is one question. I'm not sure you get more than you would from an exhibition series there.
But to call the marketing brutal assumes they wanted these games to get attention in the US, and I honestly doubt that's the case. I think they probably prefer these games to be a footnote and the focus being on the normal Opening day.