If you take out your clicker right now, we're pretty sure you'll find the
NFL draft telecast is still going on, over on some ESPN network near you.
(Tampa Bay Bucs on the board, round 68. Up next ... the Toronto Argonauts.)
And it was just last week, thanks to the miracle of ESPN2, that you could
watch the first round of the WNBA draft.
But in a little over a month, it will be time for the annual June
baseball draft. And if you settle into your Lazy Boy and flip on your TV that
day, what will you be watching?
A) a test pattern, B) another aerobically correct edition of "Body
Shaping" or C) a "Beverly Hillbillies" rerun. That would be our guess.
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Personally, I think we should televise
(the draft) -- at least the first two rounds. I
haven't heard one good argument why we
shouldn't. I know the argument used to be that we
didn't want to tip off the agents on who the top
players were. But come on. The agents now have
their own scouts out there, scouting and
recruiting. So they know. ” |
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— Jim Duquette, Mets senior assistant GM |
Because not only is the June baseball draft a not-ready-for-prime-time
programming concept, it's a not-ready-for-any-time programming concept.
And many people in baseball are still trying to figure out why that is.
"Personally, I think we should televise it -- at least the first two
rounds," says Jim Duquette, senior assistant GM of the Mets. "I haven't heard
one good argument why we shouldn't. I know the argument used to be that we
didn't want to tip off the agents on who the top players were. But come on.
The agents now have their own scouts out there, scouting and recruiting. So
they know."
Yes, they know, all right. They've known forever. But baseball has been
wary of them just the same, throughout virtually the entire history of this
draft.
In fact, until a few years ago, baseball wasn't only draft-dodging from
the TV networks. It was draft-dodging from pretty much the entire free world.
True fact: Until 1998, you had to be either a GM, a scouting director
or a CIA undercover agent to find out who had been drafted after the first
round -- because MLB refused to release the draft list, for rounds 2 through
97, for an entire week. And even then, the picks were released merely in
alphabetical order.
The thinking was: If you publicized your draft, either the agents would
find out who the good players were or the college coaches would find out and
recruit them.
So while the NFL and NBA paraded their picks across the podium, baseball was
sending its picks disguises and witness-protection-program applications. What
a great advertisement for the glory of playing baseball.
Well, we're delighted to report that MLB has finally given up on the
cloak, if not the dagger. Draft lists are now released in order, on the day
those picks take place. What a concept!
Still, it's been that old, suspicious way of thinking that has allowed
the baseball draft to remain the only draft in any major professional sport
that isn't conducted within range of a single TV camera.
"I've never understood that," says Phillies scouting director Mike
Arbuckle. "I think it's silly not to publicize it. People are living in the
dark ages if they think we're going to keep this draft secret and then run in
and sign the top picks in one or two days, before the college coaches
discover them. But that's been the thought process for years."
These days, though, it's a thought process more antiquated than a Ford
Fairlane. But thankfully, there are signs that thought process is beginning
to change.
Last year, MLB finally allowed live coverage of the draft on its web
site. And scouting directors and GMs have kicked around the TV issue at their
annual meetings. Support for the idea is clearly increasing. And it's about
time.
OK, actually it was about time 20 years ago. But now it's really about
time.
"A decade ago, people didn't know who the top guys in this draft were,"
Arbuckle says. "But now, thanks to Baseball America and people like that,
they know who Mark Teixeira is. They know who Mark Prior is. So it would be of
more interest now than it ever was. If you got deep enough into the draft, it
would get boring. But I think that for the top two or three rounds, it would
definitely be of interest."
And now, finally, there are indications that the people who run this
sport may have an open mind on this subject. Sandy Alderson, who oversees the
draft for the commissioner's office, says that if a network came to MLB and
wanted to televise the draft, baseball would be interested, pending the
approval of ownership.
In fact, though, MLB is going to have to be more than simply approachable
on this front. It's going have to show some vision and take the initiative to
make it happen.
Mike Ryan, Director of Brand Management for ESPN, says
that while the network has discussed the idea of televising the baseball
draft, management couldn't help but conclude that this draft "doesn't
generate the same interest as the NBA draft or the NFL draft." So it
concluded that it could cover the baseball draft just fine on Baseball
Tonight, SportsCenter and right here at ESPN.com.
ESPN has, of course, televised the last two expansion drafts, because
they were historic and many names being drafted were recognizable.
But it would be naīve to think that ESPN, or any network, would lay out the
kind of cash it takes to televise the football draft on a draft with far less
marquee value and far less ratings potential.
So if MLB really wants to make something of this draft, it's going to
have to do what the NHL does -- produce the telecast itself and offer it to a
network for minimal cost. Under those circumstances, there might be a whole
lot more interest.
"If Major League Baseball comes to us," Ryan says, "and says, 'We'd like
you to consider covering some portion of this draft,' and they had answers to
some of the other questions we've had about the viability of televising this
draft, then certainly we'd be willing to reconsider."
Scouting directors also have talked about moving the draft back a couple
of weeks, possibly to the All-Star break, to generate more interest. And that
might also increase its viability as a TV entity.
"This isn't just about baseball on TV," Ryan says. "This is about
everything on TV."
For ESPN, or any network, to televise any kind of programming, it needs a
reason. It has to make programming sense. It has to make economic sense.
Right now, the baseball draft doesn't automatically make either kind of sense
-- unless baseball delivers it on the right platter.
So our advice to the commish is: Do it.
Think about what the NFL draft was before it became a modern TV
extravaganza. Think about what the NBA draft was in its pre-TV days. Fact is,
they both used to take place on weekday afternoons in the spring, too. Now
they're a cottage industry unto themselves for draft predictors everywhere.
Think about the interest you can create, for fans of every team, in every
one of these top picks. It's a TV age now. So it's one thing to have
newspapers and web sites spit out the names of the top picks. It's another
for fans to see them with their own eyes, right there on videotape. The Major
League Scouting Bureau has that video in its vaults right now. So get it out
there.
And don't worry about the dreaded Scott Boras Factor. Yeah, there's
probably a player out there every year who would rather play in the Northern
League than play for the team that picks him in this draft. But if the agent
wants to hide that player from the cameras on draft day, it's a compelling
story. And compelling stories make better television. Let people judge for
themselves, via the magic of live TV, who the good guys and bad guys are.
That's what it's all about.
And oh yeah. One more thing. Your perfect draft-day host: Jerry Seinfeld.
Turned a show with no "plot" into the No. 1 TV program in the land. No
telling how far he could carry a draft with no plot.
Jayson Stark is a Senior Writer at ESPN.com.
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