Thursday BP, 10/4/18

As you probably already know, since Bryan kind of wrote about this yesterday and there hasn’t been much in the way of Giants news since, the organization announced that they will be moving the start times of their weeknight games up a half hour.

There are good arguments for and against this change. As Larry Baer noted, this might make it a little easier for families to attend weeknight games. Presumably, an earlier start time means an earlier end time. Of course, as we saw in Tuesday night’s National League Wild Card game, just because a game starts early (for us watching on the West Coast) it won’t necessarily end early.

This is also a slight plus for those who watch the team in other parts of the country, where a 7:15 pm PT start time might be closer to bedtime. I get that. Though I’ll always prioritize catering to fans in a team’s own timezone, a half hour doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things and if it gets our East Coast fans to bed a little earlier, I won’t really begrudge it. Okay, well I might, but only half-heartedly.

I, personally, am not a fan of this change. As someone who gets up at the crack of dawn and doesn’t get home from my day job until 6:00pm; someone who then is contractually obligated to cover a certain number of games, the later start time allowed an hour for a power nap. Power naps are important when your team is sleep-inducingly bad or boring. Hopefully that last part will also change with the start time, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Additionally on the negative side, it gives fans less time to get to games after work. I know that when I still lived in the area, it took all two hours after getting off work at 5pm to get to the ballpark from the North Bay.

What do you think of the new start time?